Of Angels, Demons and Hunters
by Narsauce
Summary: A decade ago, Summer Rose died. Or did she? While the world of Remnant thought she was dead, she was fighting a war for the fate of all creation. With the war thought done, it is soon realized by the Nehalem that their work isn't finished and the Great Evils live again. The Eternal Conflict rages on once more, and all Remnant shall Tremble. Art by Deiv Calviz. ABANDONED. DEAD.
1. Chapter 1: Beginnings

**Hello there. It would appear that you stumbled across the little story project that I a currently writing. This is mainly just to see if I'm decent at writing and possibly decent at... you know... getting good reviews and making people happy. Should I do well with this first chapter, I will most likely continue to give this little story of mine to the public... If not, I'll just keep it to myself. Other than that, hope you people enjoy and have a good time reading this short little project that I'm doing. I am also currently awaiting confirmation from the artist of the cover art I would like to use, so yeah... I may or may not get cover art.**

* * *

 _Pandemonium Fortress_

Ten years. Ten fucking years. Ten years of torment, of agony. Of death. Ten years of searching for herself, her past, trying to find her way in the world. It only took her ten years to get her memories back completely, of her life before Sanctuary, of her life before the Eternal Conflict. She had a family, children… a lover. And now she could go back and see them once again.

The death blow to Malthael, the corrupted archangel of death, came from her crossbow. Diablo had been felled by her blade, _Thorns_. Her life for the past ten years had been filled with more horrors and abominations than she previously had ever witnessed. But she was a hunter, and it was her job. To hunt demons, regardless of form. She fought demons in her life before she had it ripped away from her and she would continue to fight them until the day she fell herself. As she sat in silence, overlooking the vast world below, the rest of her group began to talk, contemplating the results of their actions.

"So," Kharazim, the monk of the group, said "We have defeated Malthael. Should this be the end of our fight? Can we finally rest?"

"No," Xul, the necromancer of the little traveling band, said "He consumed the Black Soulstone. When he died he released the spirits of the demons that had been trapped within."

Sonya, the resident barbarian, then spoke, "And you mean by this?"

"He means the Prime Evils have been released. I can feel the spirits trembling with their return." Nazeebo, the witch doctor, explained.

"Ah," Sonya replied, "That is what you mean."

Johanna, the crusader of the group, then spoke up "While it is true that they were released, they did not return to Sanctuary. They have gone somewhere else."

"Well, if they left, where did they go? They can only go so far with a portal." Li-Ming said. Being a wizard, she knew the sort of magic required to make a portal, specifically one without Horadric sigils.

Suddenly, Tyrael, the human archangel of wisdom, came up to the group, "There are many worlds, many places. Many worlds that demons would love to control."

"So Tyrael," Johanna said, "Do you have any idea as to where we must go to fight them?"

It was then that SHE spoke up. She had been sitting in silence for the entire conversation, just looking out over the Field of Conflict, contemplating the wars they had just fought. She said, "My home."

Everyone looked at her confused and sat in silence for a minute. Kharazim was the first to speak, "Pardon?"

"My home. They are going to my home." She said.

"Valla, what do you mean?" Li-Ming asked, confused.

"What I mean is that they left behind the war on this world. They left this world to go to the one I am from. And to wage war on it." Valla said, pulling back the white hooded cape that she wore, revealing her black hair that was cut short, down to her neck at its longest. Valla was an interesting woman. She was… different… from other demon hunters. Most Demon Hunters did what they did for vengeance and justice, and hunting demons were just their way of delivering that justice for those who fell by demonic means.

But Valla didn't.

Valla… appeared out of almost nowhere. She had no family, no friends in this world and she was stricken with amnesia, remembering nothing. Valla fought for her own reasons. She always said that she fought not for vengeance, but so others didn't have to fight.

Over her travels, she became known as _The Nameless Hunter_. Reasonably so, seeing as she had no name that she could recall. Over the years she became close friends with Kharazim, Sonya, Johanna, Nazeebo, Xul and Li-Ming, the seven of them traveling and defeating demons and other monsters, growing in strength. Eventually, the others began calling her Valla, simply because it was easier than referring to her any other way. After a while, they found Tristram, it's lands plagued by the restless dead. It was there they met Deckard Cain and his niece Leah. Upon discovering the cause of the rising dead, a fallen star, the seven ventured out to put an end to it. They found, in the crater of the fallen star that struck Tristram Cathedral, a man who did not know his name. After recovering the man and returning to New Tristram, they set out to find that man's sword, or rather its shards, in hopes that it would rekindle his memory. One of the shards was in a temple built by ancient Nephalem, the descendants of children of Angels and Demons. In this temple, the group discovers that they too are also Nephalem. It is also in this temple that Valla begins to recover some of her own memories, bit by bit. A voice saying ' _These are your first steps'_ , and a duo of bubbly little girls. Slowly, over time, Valla got back more and more of her memories, but it wasn't till their battle with Diablo on the Silver Spire that she remembered everything. Her past, her name, her children, her husband, her friends, _her family_. Diablo tried used the ideas of her never seeing her family again or seeing them killed by the armies of hell, one of the two, to strike fear in her. It didn't work as expected, putting it simply. Valla got enraged and managed to kill him singlehandedly, only after a long and excruciatingly difficult battle with the superpowered Demon, before causing a blast of light that purified the High Heavens of the demonic corruption that infested it only minutes before. Then, after Malthael took The Black Soulstone (A method of entrapping the souls of Angels and Demons and a weapon of deterrence developers by humanity during the Eternal Conflict), Valla killed him in Pandemonium Fortress. Alone. By herself, Valla faced down Death made physical in form. And she won but as with the fight with Diablo, it was difficult, almost impossible. However, when she won, she released accidently released the demons the group worked so hard to trap in the Soulstone, letting them loose on the world.

"So, what should we do?" Sonya asked, "None of us know how to travel worlds."

When the group looked at her, Sonya put up her hands in defense "Ok fine. I don't know how to travel worlds."

Kharazim then rolled his eyes and said, "Neither do I. Li-Ming, would you know how to do this?"

Li-Ming nodded and said "Of course I can Kharazim. Do you think I am a novice in the magical arts?"

Johanna looked up and said, "You just said portals can't go that far in distance."

Li-Ming smiles and replied, "I said portals, not Gateways."

"And what, might I ask, is the difference?" Valla asked, curious for an explanation.

"Portals are precise but are difficult to make and limited in distance. You could travel from… let's say, Tristram to Bastion's Keep in a portal and end up precisely where you want to be, but you couldn't go much further." Li-Ming explained, "Gateways, on the other hand, can get you just about anywhere, at least in the general area you intend to go to, within a two to around a four-thousand-mile radius of your intended destination. Imagine it like throwing a dart at a really far away target."

"Interesting explanation." Johanna said, "So we create a gateway to this world, then we portal to the required location. Seems simple enough."

"That's the only problem," Li-Ming said, "I'm the only one here who can create portals and I need to personally know the place to do so. So, once we get there, we are in the dark."

Nazeebo looked at Li-Ming with a strange look and said, "We can create portals, like the town portals we use."

Before Li-Ming could respond, Xul said "Those are because of the Horadric sigils that are in the towns. We would not be able to portal to those locations without them."

"So, we must hope we get lucky with where the gateway drops us, then go from there. That is our plan?" Sonya asked.

"Yes," Valla responded, "That is the plan. I believe."

She then turned to Tyrael and asked, "Tyrael, are you going to join us?"

Tyrael turns to the group, hefting his mighty sword over his shoulder, and replied, "Of course, Nephalem. Where demons go, so must we."

"Then it is decided," Johanna said, the group turning to their comrade, "We shall go. But we will need a guide, someone to show us through this strange and unfamiliar world. Valla, could you do this for us, seeing as how you know this world?"

Valla nodded and replied, "Yes, of course. Now, Li-Ming, could you get started on that Gateway thingy?"

Li-Ming chuckled and said, "Sure!"

Merely a few minutes after she started, Li-Ming observed the fruits of her labor. A giant purple and blue swirly, a combination of the Horadric and Arcane arts. While not a perfect method of travel, it would suffice for now. She called out to the rest of her companions, "The gateway is done!"

As all the group gathered around to see the vortex that Li-Ming had constructed, Sonya asked, "So, we may depart now?"

Valla nodded and replied, "Yes… we can. But before we go, I have a request."

"And what would that be, Valla?" Xul said.

"Please, call me Summer. Summer Rose."

* * *

 _Fur as black as the night sky above. Masks and claws as white as the moon and snow. Splashes of red painted the white of the forest floor like a badly drawn picture. But none of that mattered to her._

 _Her focus was on one thing and one thing alone._

 _She saw a ﬁgure in the distance. She began to approach the ﬁgure to get a closer look but only saw the ﬁgure's back, which was covered by a long white hooded cloak. They were facing a beacon of Light that was so bright that it hurt her eyes to look at it for too long._

 _The moment she got a good look at the ﬁgure's back, the ﬁgure started moving away from her and towards the Light in a sedate pace, never once speeding up nor slowing down._

 _Panicked, she followed the ﬁgure in hopes of catching up to them. Yet the distance between them remained the same. She moved her legs into a light jog and then into a full-on sprint to close the distance but to no avail. It never changed, as if she ran on a treadmill._

 _Yet through all of that, the ﬁgure showed no sign of increasing their speed. They somehow still walked forward in a calm pace, as if they were in no hurry and with nowhere to be._

 _She willed her legs to move even faster to catch the cloaked figure. She ignored how her legs were burning in protest, she pushed on and on until through some unknown miracle, she ﬁnally got closer to the ﬁgure._

 _Before she could grab the ﬁgure by the shoulder, the ﬁgure turned their head to look behind them, at her. The top half of the mysterious ﬁgure's face was hidden by the hood so the mouth, which slowly turned to a warm smile, was all that she could see._

 _Tears began to well up in her eyes as the ﬁgure's mouth opened to say five words._

 _"Just a little longer, Ruby."_

* * *

"Mom!" Ruby Rose woke, sitting up, stiff as a board, with her hand reaching out before her as if it was about to grab a hold of something, "Huh?"

The young reaper looked around her in confusion. Gone were snowy forest and the dissolving Grimm corpses. Only the dorm room of team RWBY.

She shook her head to clear the haze of sleep. Luckily, no one else in her team woke up from her outburst because Yang's snoring drowned it out. For the first time, she was glad of her older sister's bad sleeping habits.

Ruby thought she stopped having that dream years ago but apparently, she was wrong.

The young huntress-in-training climbed down from her bed as quietly as she can. She wasn't a ninja like Blake, but she could totally pull the whole sneaky act off when she wants to. Like right now, for example.

She gave herself a fist pump after successfully making her way around the room without waking anyone up. Blake didn't stir even with her more sensitive cat ears.

As she rummaged through books for what she had in mind, she thought back to the dream that she had.

It all started after learning of her mother's death. Ruby was in denial of mother's death at first and thought (or more like hoped) she would return home someday. This belief led to the dreams. Almost every night, Ruby would see her mother walking away from her. Every time, she would chase after her to bring her back home. And fail every time because no matter how fast she ran, she could never catch up to her beloved mother.

Until now. Now she got to her.

Due to her distraction, Ruby didn't notice the large white binder, one that was most likely belonging to Weiss, at her feet and painfully stubbed her toe on it for her trouble.

Mindful to not wake the others up, the adolescent leader opened her mouth in an inaudible scream of pain while bouncing on one foot and cradling the other. Her Aura may have lessened the impact but it still hurt a great deal. Her Aura finally kicked in an alleviated the ache for a much-needed recovery, as stubbing one's toe is the worst pain one can endure.

Ruby looked down to glare at the offending object, tempted to kick it but thought better of it since she would just hurt her foot again. Her glare gave way to a thoughtful expression as she stared at the binder. It could be put to better use instead.

The young and determined Rose struggled to lift the binder to her bed but she only managed to raise it up to her chest. With one last groan of exertion, she tossed the binder to her bed where its landing was mufﬂed by her pillows.

' _Wow,'_ she thought in disbelief at her luck. She wasn't even aiming for her pillows.

Ruby climbed back up her bed and placed the blanket over herself and the binder. Under the cover of the blanket, she turned on the ﬂashlight function on her Scroll. With pen in hand, she began her preparations for the best day ever.

It was something to keep her mind off her strange dream about Summer Rose.

* * *

 _Valeish Mountains, 2216 miles from Beacon Academy, approximately twenty days travel on foot…_

The snow covered the land around the village at the foot of a huge mountain. It was dark out, very dark. Hendrick, the towns huntsman, stood at his post in the watchtower, watching. Waiting. He was waiting for the Grimm to arrive, waiting, with his hands shivering, clamped on his alarm. As his eyes began to dull, to grow heavy, Hendrick checks his scroll.

' _Seven minutes till guard change.'_ He thought as he put his scroll away.

Turning around, Hendrick saw a pair of glowing red eyes. Then two, four, twelve, thirty-four, sixty-eight. Hendrick's eyes shot open, realizing that this was a Grimm attack and a large one at that. Quickly pressing the alarm button, Hendrick turned himself to the onslaught of Grimm, of teeth and death. Pulling out his rifle/sword, Hendrick fired dust round after dust round into the oncoming tide of horrors, feeling the black beasts one at a time. Two of his fellow hunters, his wife Lila and Jade, a green-haired friend of his wife, joined him. They all fired off many rounds, killing a total of eighteen of the Grimm, most being Beowolves and a few being Ursa. Realizing that the battle would end in closer quarters, the three hunters leapt off the ramparts of the walls to go to the gates. Suddenly, the gate burst open, revealing five Deathstalkers, fifteen Ursa, and was thirty Beowolves.

"That's too many," Lila said, "There is no way we can survive this."

"Don't worry, Lila, help is on the way." Hendrick said, before muttering "I hope…"

The Grimm charged at the three hunters, as they readied their weapons to fight to the death. Just before the three were about to be overwhelmed by what seemed to be a never-ending tide, a massive wall erupted from the ground. What surprised them the most, however, was what the wall was made of.

Human bones.

"What… the… fuck?" Jade asked as she looked around to see the perpetrator. Just as she said that, three turrets, crossbows by the looks of them, sprang from the ground and began to fire at the Grimm, shredding them.

Almost as soon as the turrets went down, a flaming circle formed on the ground, and three heads burst from it, similarly flamelike, before sending tounges of flame at the Grimm, which were still trapped by the bone wall.

Just then, the bone wall broke apart, as the remaining Grimm charged the hunters, seemingly ignoring the crossbows and the three flaming dragon heads that continued to tear swaths in their ranks.

Suddenly, a woman in full white and black combat armor… appeared in front of the hunters. She wielded an ornate flail in her right hand and white shield with a black cross in the center in her left.

"Get behind me." She ordered, her voice is that of a leader of armies, firm and strong. She raised her shield to face the Grimm, only for a bright flash of light to be thrown from it, immobilizing the Grimm caught in its flash.

"SONYA, KHARAZIM, NOW!" The woman before the hunters shouted, as a different woman, wielding two massive swords, and a man, wielding nothing but gauntlets on his hands leapt up from behind them. The woman with the two swords landed first, impacting the ground and causing it to shatter around her, entrapping some unfortunate Grimm with her. Swirling around at speeds fast enough to cause a tornado, she sliced through Grimm after Grimm, her blades ignoring the bone armor that protected the beasts, the howls of pain jolting the hunters as she sliced through the Grimm like butter.

The man landed after the woman, and thrust his hand out, causing the air in front of him to rush forward like a bullet, cutting through each beast caught in its past. The man then practically blinked to one of the remaining Deathstalkers, punching it in its bone mask and shattering it, causing the beast to scream in pain. He then wound up his back leg, performing a lashing tail kick and splattering the remains of the scorpion Grimm to the wall before dashing away to another group of Grimm.

The woman in front to the hunters threw her shield out, connecting it with many of the approaching Beowolves, stunning them again. She ran forward with her flail and smashed it into one of the Beowolves heads, decapitating it in an instant, before turning to another, tripping it, and crushing its head with her boot, only to catch her shield and bash it into another, oncoming Beowolf.

Another Ursa attempted to rush the hunters while the woman wasn't present. This, however, was a fatal mistake, as another bone cage shot up around it and a GIANT FUCKING METEOR crashed down on it, obliterating the Ursa. As the battle continued to rage, a towering monster erupted from the ground and grabbed an Ursa by the face and tore its jaw off, while some… dog like things ripped through the Beowolves. Suddenly, a woman appeared, flanked by a man on her left who wore a tribal mask, who carried around a shrunken head and a knife. The man to his left had a blanched shirt and pale skin, wielding a wicked scythe with a green blade and a short, jagged knife made of a similar material. On the women in the center's right stood another woman, this one with a ponytail and long black hair. She wore a headdress with spikes, a gauntlet that looked scaly and had claws for fingers on her left hand, and what looked like a wand with a floating purple stone in the middle in her right and a floating orb in her left. The final man stood on the far right, a massive ornate sword held in one of his gauntlet-clad hands and a green cloak draped over his body. The woman in the center wore a white cloak that reached to her ankles, with two small hand-held crossbows and a quiver strapped to her back and an ornate handcrafted sword on her belt.

"Have the Grimm been dealt with?" The white cloaked woman asked, directed at the man in green.

The man responded in a deep, melodic voice "Yes, that they have. Though we must hurry if we are to stop the Great Evil's plans for this world."

The rest of the group nodded, and the man in the monk attire looked over at the three hunters, who were still shell-shocked from the strange abilities demonstrated by this group of strangers. He walked up to them and asked, "Will this town be alright to defend itself from a future attack of these demons?"

Hendrick nodded and replied "Yes, I believe we will. You know, you guys did save us… do you want a reward? Money, food, clothes?"

The group shook their heads simultaneously and the woman in white replied, "There is no need for that. It is our duty and pleasure to help."

As the group of strangers began to walk away, the woman in white said, "Actually, there is something you could get for us."

Hendrick looked confused and asked, "What's that?"

"Directions." The woman replied.

And with that, away flew a crow.

* * *

Ozpin sat in his office, sipping his coffee, a regular occurrence for the headmaster of Beacon. He looked over papers, reports, messages, the like. Honestly, he was quite bored right now, seeing as his allies were all doing other things, out finding maidens, protecting said maidens, protecting the Huntsman academies, teaching in said academies, managing a military, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. To be truthful, waiting for the presumed attack is a lot more stressful than the attack itself.

Ozpin sighed looking out the window of his office, the early morning sky a bright blue. Suddenly, a crow landed on the chair in front of him and transformed into a man. Specifically, the crow transformed into a very winded and tired Qrow.

"Qrow, I didn't expect you here so soon." Ozpin said, "Did you find a maiden already?"

Qrow did not respond right away. To be fair, he didn't know how to. What had he seen, truly? Qrow then decided to speak, saying "Oz… I don't know what I just saw…"

Ozpin gave him a curious look and said "Well, could you describe the encounter? Do you think that they were the people who attacked Amber?"

"I… No… I don't think so, at least." Qrow said, contemplating his words, "Unless the powers of a maiden include large flashes of stunning light, cracking the earth by jumping on it, spin kicking a Deathstalker to a pulp, summoning Hydra's that are made out of fire, and chucking meteors things."

Ozpin looked surprised at Qrow, seeing as to how exaggerated most of his stories were. But Qrow was deadly serious. Ozpin began to ask "Did you get to talk to…"

"Oh yeah, did I forget to mention the bone wall and the zombie dogs?" Qrow said nonchalantly.

"The what?" Ozpin replied, stunned, "Okay, maybe it would be best for you to explain this from the beginning of the incident."

Qrow pulled out his flask out and takes a swig of alcohol. This was going to be… interesting, to say the least.

Starting off, Qrow said "Ok, starting off, I was in the southeastern part of Vytal, mountain area, right? So, I'm just flying around, looking for suspicious things, when a village sends out this distress beacon, something like seventy Grimm showed up on their doorstep, in the middle of the night. So, naturally, I went to help. When I got there, I was too late, seeing as how the village already got some help from… a band of people. Don't know who they were, why they were there, but they fought the Grimm with such vigor and tenacity, it was like they were fully trained hunters."

Ozpin sat forward in his chair and asked, "Could you describe to me the appearance of these strangers?"

Qrow nodded and said "Well, the first one I saw was a woman. She looked like a goddamn knight in shining armor. She had a huge white shield with a black cross in the center and flail. She also was the one who did the stunny light thingy with her shield. The next two were this bald guy and a strong girl. The strong girl had these two massive swords and did the cracking earth thing. She also spun around and had to have cleaved several Grimm into thin strands by the time she was done with spinning. The bald guy did the kicking a Deathstalker so hard it explodes thing. If I'm not mistaken, he also set his leg on fire while doing it and palm-struck the air so hard it gutted several Grimm."

"Intriguing." Ozpin said, "Do you think that these would be their semblances?"

"No, it's too varied." Qrow said "I mean, the Schnees can do a lot with their glyphs, but those are all still glyphs. What these guys did… it wasn't semblance. It was comparable to maidens. Maybe not all four of them at once, but still, these guys could a number to any Maiden, any day. Oz, these guys are like forces of nature."

"Very well, I trust your judgment Qrow. Continue." Ozpin replied.

"So then after that, the rest of the group came. There were five more and explaining what all of them did would take way to long, so I'm just going to give you the jist of what they looked like. The first guy looked like he was wearing a tribal mask, and I think he was the one who did the zombie dog thing. The next guy was wearing this brown shirt and pants with knee guards and the spikiest boots I've ever seen, and he had this wicked green scythe and dagger. Then there was this princess looker purple robes, a spiked tiara, a gauntlet with claws, some weird floaty thingy that was purple and a huge wand thing with another purple orb thing. The next guy was huge and had this green cloak, this golden gauntlet, and this silver and gold sword. The last person, a woman, I think, had these crossbows and a quiver on her back and a sword on her side. She also wore a white cloak, like Summer did. You know… before she died."

"Interesting." Ozpin said, "Very well. I believe you deserve a break after traveling like that. Take the next few days off."

"Thanks, Oz." Qrow replied, "Guess I could use some time with my nieces."

* * *

 **Well then... that's a wrap for this time. Please leave your reviews and any** **criticism you may have. After all, this is my first Fanfic, so I suppose that I will need some practice... Well then, I do believe I talk too much. If you have any ideas for future chapters, Pm me pls. Also, this fic will include an OC team, so if that's a turn off for you... well... I dunno what to do.**

 **I think that covers all the obligatory fanfiction writer things I have to say... in that case see you all next time. Bye!**


	2. Chapter 2: Past

**Well then. That actually went pretty well. For a fandom with a total of eight stories, only one of which I believe is currently active and updating regularly, I think I did well, in the regards that this story now has seven favorites and eight followers. And that was within the first day or so. Now, with all the appreciations out of the way, comes time for the most fun portion of the starting authors note. Replying to reviews! (Just warning you all, should this story strike gold somewhere, I might not be able to respond to all reveiws. But, should you have any concerns, please PM me, I'm open to it.)**

 **MegaElite: Tha** **nks for the compliment. Also, just for your information, I have five chapters of this thing finished (On editing and** **lengthening** **them) already, working on finishing the sixth. They'll go up when I think they are long enough and ready. But yeah, thanks for the complement and hope you keep coming back.**

 **TheFelRoseOfTerror: Yeah, I know my pacing is... less than amazing. I sorta try to rush through the first little traveling bits with the group of eight and thus I am also ignoring some things that I probably shouldn't ignore. But, in all honesty, I'm trying not to have this play out like Volume 4. While I personally didn't hate it, there was to much of the same things in it. Yang being depressed (And rightfully so, she had her arm removed), Ruby and RNJR just traveling a bunch and stretching out a plot line that really didn't need stretching, Weiss with her daddy issues and Blake being Blake. Other than that, I'm gonna have to go with keeping this little project of mine going. I don't wanna see what the or else option you provided me with will entail.**

 **Other than all that, hope you like the next little chapter of this story and see you guys at the end. Bye for now!**

* * *

 _Unknown area in a forest…_

The group of travelers had set up camp, approximately 111 miles from the town they had recently saved from the Grimm. Still, it was some ways away from Beacon, the location Summer most wished to visit. Of course, not after a few stops along the way, but nonetheless, it was the location she wished to go to. Primarily, their mission was to alert Ozpin, the school's headmaster to the incoming attacks from Hell and the Greater Evils, but then again, knowing Ozpin, he probably already knew about it but is to spineless to do anything about it. Secondary, Summer's personal mission was to prevent her family from falling victim to the beasts of hell that would most definitely try to invade Vale. As the group sat around the fire, Li-Ming conjured her flame hydra to keep a steady flame for light, while Nazeebo and Xul had sent their zombies and skeletons out into the forest to kill Grimm. secure a perimeter around the camp and to hopefully give the group a much-needed rest, Sonya was sharpening her swords, Kharazim was cutting trees for the fire with his kicks and punches, Tyrael was sitting around doing nothing, in deep thought as always and Johanna was standing watch for any Grimm that just so happened to make it past the skeletons and zombies patrolling the forests. Not that it was necessary, but it was just so that none of them got woken up should they fall asleep. To the Nephalem, Grimm were sort of like mosquitoes, if mosquitoes were the size of a pickup truck and had large teeth and claws as well has having other variants that were bigger with more teeth and claws.

Summer sighed and took off her pack and began to search for something in the Horadric enchanted sack. The bottomless bag that once belonged to Deckard Cain (When she got it, she suddenly realized just how he kept all his notes and papers with him at all times)contained some of her most prized possessions from her travels in Sanctuary, mainly her lute. Why did Summer have a lute? Simple, she got it during her first week in Sanctuary, when she saved a family of farmers about to become food for Khazra, or as some people call them, large and savage goat people with large weapons. The family insisted on giving her something, anything in return for her actions, of which Summer refused. Then the father of the family brought out a lute, wooden in nature and quite well kept. He told her to keep it, regardless of whether she wanted it. And so, she did, bringing the lute on all her travels, slowly getting better with it and learning new songs.

Summer chuckled to herself, thinking about what Ruby and Yang would be like when they heard their mother play music. Back when she still lived on Remnant, ten years ago, she couldn't play music, even if her life depended on it. She could sing, sure, but playing music on an instrument was almost out of the question, should you want your ears to remain intact while she was playing. Ruby, Yang and Tai always made fun of her for it, in good conscious, of course. But still, now she could get back at them with her amazing musical skills that she had perfected over the last ten years.

As Summer took up her lute, she began to think over what type of song she should play tonight. Melodic, she decided, as she tuned the lute's strings correctly. As she began to strum the melodic tune of _Mumford and Sons: Ghosts that we knew_ , Kharazim came back to the camp and dumped a tree he had been carrying, shaking the earth around them and causing Summer to lose her focus and drop her lute in fright.

 **(An: While I don't think you have to listen to the song now,** _Ghosts that we knew_ **is a good song)**

Summer sighed, as she picked her lute back up and said "Really, Kharazim?"

"Were you going to play a song?" Kharazim said, noticing the lute, "If so, I apologize for dropping this tree and disrupting you. Please, continue."

Summer nodded in appreciation and continued playing from the point she left off at, coaxing the sweet melodies out of the strings of her instrument. As the group gathered around the fire to listen, Summer began to sing, her voice perfectly synced with the hum of the lute, as she went through the motions of the song, price by piece. When she was finished, she put her lute back in her sack and the group applauded her for her stellar performance. After the clapping died down, the eight friends sat in silence for a few minutes.

Getting somewhat board of the perpetual silence, Li-Ming decided to say "Valla… err, Summer?"

"Yes Li-Ming?" Summer replied cheerily.

"Well, I've been thinking…" Li-Ming began to respond.

Sonya perked up and said "Really? The world must be ending!"

"Ha-ha, very funny. Tease the wizard. Ha-ha." Li-Ming said jokingly, "Make another joke about me, and I turn you into a damn frog."

"But in all seriousness," She continued, "I was just wondering if you could tell us about your history here."

Summer looked confused and said, "And by that you mean?"

"Your past on Remnant. Could you tell us about it?"

Summer smiled and said "Sure, why not."

As she comfortable on her log seat, she began to say "It all began 40 or so years ago…"

* * *

When Ruby woke up today, the last thing she expected was to see her uncle in combat class. Much less, she didn't expect him to be helping with the teaching of it. Seeing as to how he was on a mission of an indefinite length, Ruby though he would never come back, not for anything. Not even her. But here he was, standing before her, her uncle.

"UNCLE QROW!" she screamed, launching herself at her uncle and leaving a trail of rose petals in her wake.

"You're back!" Yang said, running over to her uncle as well.

As the two siblings hugged their uncle mercilessly, Qrow sighed as the WB of RWBY gave him confused looks. He said, "I'm their uncle, if you couldn't tell."

"Oh no," Weiss said, "I got that much from the 'UNCLE QROW!' bit by Ruby. I was just wondering why you look so much like one of the characters my sister is always fantasizing about in her diary…"

"Wait… what?!" Qrow said, surprised at Weiss' statement.

Weiss' look then changed from its confused state to an embarrassed one to a scared one in a matter of a few milliseconds, and she replied, "Oh nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing… Winter's going to kill me…"

"Meh, who cares about your sister and her diary. Qrow, why are you home?" Ruby demanded, clinging to her uncle's arm.

"Well, I'm back because Oz gave me a break from my mission. Mainly because I just came from around two thousand miles away in one night." Qrow said.

Everyone gave him a confused look and Yang said, "How did you…?"

"I… ran very, very fast for a bit, then I caught a bullhead here." Qrow said, hoping the girls before him would believe his ridiculous lie.

Blake just shrugged and said "Sure then. I'm not gonna question it. So, what did you do last night?"

"Well… that's a completely different story. I… found this village that was attacked by Grimm, around seventy of them." Qrow said, taking a swig of hard liquor from his flask.

"Whoa…" Ruby said, astonished, before continuing quickly, "Did you kill them all?"

Qrow shook his head and said "Well, when I got there, it was too late…"

The girls of Team RWBY looked down, depressed that an entire town had met their end last night. As they did, Qrow spoke up, "What I mean to say, is all the Grimm were dead when I got there."

"Wait, really?" Blake said surprised, "Who killed them?"

"I… don't know their names, but there were eight of them." Qrow responded.

Weiss scoffed and said "It took eight of them? To kill some Grimm?"

Qrow nodded before saying "Yeah, but it was like they weren't even trying. They didn't give a damn and were slaughtering everything in their path. It was honestly scary."

"Oh… scary you say?" Yang said, "Can you tell us about them?"

* * *

Time and time again, Ozpin searched his texts, looking for an answer. One that he had not had to look for in a long time. One that could, if what he thought those eight turned out to be true, change the game. You see, Ozpin thought of the game with Salem, the Grimm Witch, to be like a chess game. There were pawns, knights, bishops, kings, queens, rooks. These eight, should his assumptions be correct, would be like adding in several extra queens to his board. Several Queens. That would almost guarantee victory for his group, guarantee the protection of the second Worldstone that lay at the heart of Remnant.

Yes, the second Eye of Anu lay at the core of Remnant. Yes, after the battle between Tathamet and Anu, there did exist two eyes and yes, one was lost, and it created around itself the world of Remnant. Over the years, the Wizard, Ozpin's most ancient reincarnation, came from the Worldstone, it created him and blessed/cursed him with the ability to reincarnate to fight off Salem and her armies. The Wizard was neither Angel nor was he Demon in origin, rather he was in between, somewhat Nephalem, but also not at the same time. As he reached the section of his tales he was looking for, he paused. What if they were indeed Nephalem, why would they come here? What would be their purpose here? What would that entail for Remnant?

"Ah, here it is." Ozpin said, seeing and taking out the most ancient book in his library, titled _The Eternal Conflict_. Truly a fitting name for a book on the endless war that plagued creation since time's dawn.

As he flipped through the pages, he got to the section on The Second Eye and the world it formed. He had found what he was looking for, the piece to the puzzle he was going to have to solve now. All he had to do was…

There.

The section on silver eyed warriors, descendants of Rathma, or as he was known by his birth name, Linarian. An ancient line of Nephalem, that drew its origins from the most ancient of the angels and demons that defected from the conflict all those millennia ago, namely Lilith and Inarius. Ozpin knew all this, but that explanation of the silver eyed warriors ancestry wasn't exactly what he was looking for. As he flipped through the section, he found a story, written in black ink, which he decided to read.

 _Return_ was its title. Why was it titled _Return_? No one knew, but the tale was supposedly prophetic in nature mainly because the events that it predicted had never come to pass, as most of the other tales in the book had. As Ozpin flipped through the tale, his eyes widened. It's first lines read " _Eight, there came, to face the Greatest Evils mortals have ever known. One was a wandering monk, a man of spirit and faith, who's blessings heal the sick and cure those of death. Another, a necromancer, raiser of the dead. A priest of balance, a follower of Rathma, he who tips the scales of balance with life and death. Yet another, A witch doctor, a communed with spirits, he who bends nature to his will. The unrestful souls come as he beckons. And another, the warrior, the last of her kind, the last guardian of a Worldstone, she who shakes the earth. The crusader, a warrior of light, justice, and righteousness. A beacon of hope for all who come to her. The wizard, the master of the arcane arts. She who bends reality to her will, with spells and raw power. The fallen angel, the fallen star, once he was justice itself, now he is wisdom of mortality, he who cast himself from heaven for the sake of justice, to protect the mortals who he charged himself with defending. And finally, the white cloaked demon hunter, slayer of beasts, she who left this world, thought to be dead, to return and defend it."_

It's _,_ then went into poem, for whatever reason, " _Huntress, huntsmen and hunters are we, of demons great and small/ Fire and flame, of hellish hate, of the almighty heavens fall/ The Nephalem shall come again, by the hand of a white rose/ An evil ancient, of rage and death, fury that no one knows."_

As Ozpin read the words, he began to sweat at the thoughts. He knew what was coming, the Great Evils, supposedly far more dangerous than maidens. They embodied evil incarnate and should their souls come together, Tathamet, the Prime Evil, would return and spell the end of all things. He put the book away, not wishing to look at it any more. After all, he had many things to think on. Primarily, how to save his world. Secondarily, how to make a backpack filled with coffee.

* * *

"So…" Yang said, "Let me get this straight. You saw a guy. Who kicked a DEATHSTALKER so damn hard… it exploded."

"Yup." Qrow said, nodding his head, "That is indeed what I said."

Yang cheered and said, "Well, I'll be the first to say I would love to spar that guy."

"Is that all you think about Yang? Fighting?" Ruby asked.

"Yes. Yes, it is." Yang replied.

Weiss huffed and said "Ruby, the only things you asked about are the weapons that they used. So, stop talking."

"Hey!" Ruby said, "I have my reasons! I wanna upgrade Crescent Rose with that green rock that pale guy's scythe was made with."

Weiss face palmed at her leader's obsession with Crescent Rose. All she ever thought about was Crescent Rose. Not that that is a problem, mind you. Caring for a weapon is necessary for it to function at peak efficiency and due to Crescent Rose being a very versatile weapon with a lot of moving parts, it needed repairs, tune-ups, oiling, among other things, a lot more often than the other weapons of Team RWBY. But still, all she thought about was Crescent Rose!

"Well, it's been nice, but I got things I gotta go do at Signal. I also promised Tai a drink, so I also gotta do that." Qrow said as he slowly rose.

"Uhm… Uncle Qrow?" Ruby said as Qrow got up to leave, "Can I ask you a bit of a question before you leave?"

"Umm, sure kiddo. Whats up?" Qrow said, looking down at his niece.

"Well, do you… I dunno… remember that one dream I used to have?"

Qrow sat back down and looked at his niece with a funny look and asked "Which one? You've had many dreams and you've told me about a lot of them."

"The one about mom." Ruby said, "Y'know, the one that I started having after she died…"

Yang gave her a confused look, then one of realization and then she said "Weiss, Blake. Could you give us a minute in here?"

"Sure," Weiss said, "We can do that. Right Blake?"

"As long as I can keep my book and you guys don't take to long, sure."

Weiss and Blake then both got up and left the dorm, leaving Ruby, Yang and Qrow in the room by themselves. As the three of them sat around, Yang asked "You are talking about that dream, right?"

Ruby nodded, and Yang said, "You know she is dead, right?"

"But this time was different!" Ruby said defensively, "I usually just ran after her and I never get close to her, no matter how hard I try. This time…"

"This time what?" Qrow said, trying to coax the answer out of his niece.

"This time… this time… this time I caught up to her… I reached her. And she said something to me." Ruby said with tears in her eyes.

"What did she say?" Yang asked.

"Just a little longer, Ruby." Ruby said, "That's what she said. That's all she said! She must be alive! She… she has to be! It has to mean something!"

"Ruby…" Qrow said somewhat sadly, trying to calm his niece, "She's been gone for ten years. She's been dead for ten years… she's… not coming back."

"Don't tell me that Qrow!" Ruby screamed, fury and tears filling her eyes, as her irises began to softly glow, not enough for anyone to notice, "She is coming back! Even if I have to go to hell and back to find her! She's either coming back on her own, or I am finding her and dragging her back here by the hood of her cloak!"

 _ **(An: Ironic you should say that, Ruby)**_

Ruby then completely broke down in tears, balling up and resting her head on Yang's lap "I just wanna see mom again… I just wanna see her again…"

"I know you do, Rubes. I want to see her again to. We all do..." Yang said as she looked down at her sister and rubbed her head, trying to soothe her as much as she could. But it was to no avail, as Ruby was having none of it, continuing to ball her eyes out, and muttering over and over again, "I just wanna see her again…"

"Ruby…" Yang said, "If mom is alive, we will find her. All of us, Team RWBY, STNL and JNPR. We will help you find her again."

"Thank you, Yang." Ruby said, "You're the best big sister ever."

"I know," Yang said, Qrow nodding at her in gratitude "I have to be, I'm the only one you got."

* * *

"So, after graduating from Beacon, I sort of did my own thing for a few years, fighting Grimm and what not. As the years went by, I sorta lost a bit of contact with some old friends, but I always stayed in touch with my old teammates from Team STRQ. I told you about them, right?"

"Yes, Summer. You did." Kharazim said, "Ten different times."

Summer looked surprised, then remembering all the times she told the group about STRQ, before saying, "Huh. So I did. Regardless, after I heard that Raven left Taiyang and their daughter Yang, I sorta moved in to fill the gap and in the process became the step-mother of Yang. After a while of taking care of Yang and helping Tai, for a year at least, we got married and had a kid… we named her Ruby. My little rose…"

"And this child of yours… Ruby… what is she like?" Sonya asked.

Summer shrugged and replied, "Well, if she's anything like she was a decade ago, she is addicted to cookies, strawberries and just about anything sweet, as well as being a weapons nut, along with being somewhat hyperactive and she's really a mommy's girl. That is to say, it has been a decade so she had most likely changed a bit. If she hasn't, well then I'm very lucky."

Li-Ming then said, "And Yang? What is she like?"

"Oh, Yang is so very much different from Ruby. Where Ruby had short, choppy black hair, Yang has the longest, blondest hair that one can possibly have. Also, if I remember correctly, her semblance is something to do with 'Getting hit makes you hit things harder.' She discovered it when she got her first haircut after Tai and I unlocked her aura when she was six. We never knew that her semblance was also tied to her hair. You should have seen the look on the barber's face when he flew through the wall of the shop." Summer replied, giggling at the memory.

Johanna looked surprised, "So… your six year old daughter… punched a fully grown man… through a wall…"

"Yup." Summer replied casually, "That was my reaction to."

"What the heck..." Johanna said.

"So, these semblances, what exactly do they do?" Tyrael asked.

"They're like a ability based on aura." Summer replied, "They are mostly based on one's attitude and personality. So if you are a hothead like Yang, you might have something like my daughter, considering her semblance is effectively a super powered temper tantrum. Some of them can be hereditary, like the Schnees with their glyphs. Semblances are just one of the things huntsmen and huntresses use to fight Grimm, that coupled with dust and our advanced weapons."

"So, these demons, Grimm as you call them, what exactly are they?" Li-Ming asked.

Summer nodded and said "They are beasts of pure malice and Darkness, and also for some reason they don't have any souls which means they don't have auras. They have physical form, yet they're bodies rapidly decay upon their "death", though I am unsure as to whether or not they are actually alive, thus I am also unsure if they can die or not."

"That also means we can create no soul stone to entrap them." Kharazim said, "This fight is only getting more and more difficult. So they can basically produce indefinite amounts of themselves and we can't trap them."

Summer shrugged, "Basically, yes."

Johanna nodded and said "You said there are many types of Grimm. Could you tell their nature to us so that we may have an advantage over them when we fight?"

"Sure," Summer said, "The most basic Grimm in existence is the Beowolf. It's like a werewolf, but less good. They aren't as smart, and rarely do they form any sort of cohesive plan. They just swarm and try to kill things with numbers, jaws and claws. Their elder version, an Alpha, usually pose a bit more threat to people. They are, on average, larger, smarter, and they also have greater amounts of the bone armor protecting them."

"So, they are like a Fallen one only without the tendency to run in fear, as well as lacking the weaponry that a fallen one would use." Xul commented.

"Exactly, though I am unsure as to whether or not Grimm can actually feel fear at all," Summer said, smiling, "Next, there are Ursa, the bear like ones. They are larger, stronger, have more armor, but are slower and come in lower numbers than Beowolves. Again, they rarely form any cohesive plans, regrading anything really, but instead of numbers only, Ursa has a bit of brawn behind their attacks. The Majors are more dangerous, in the same way as an Alpha Beowolf is to a regular Beowolf, being bigger, spikier, more bone armor, etc."

"Not much diversity then, I see." Johanna said, "If I made these abominations, I would have at least specialized them a bit."

"Good thing you aren't in charge of the Grimm then." Summer smirked, "Then we would have lost this war long ago."

The group chuckled, and Summer continued "There are also Gryphons, but they are quite rare. And all the same, things apply to them in regard to how their hierarchy functions, and they can also fly. Nevermores can fly to and come in the form of a huge raven. They can also shoot their feathers out as projectiles that can cut clean through a lot of things. Probably not with our aura levels, but still."

 **(A.N: Yes, Summer did unlock the group's auras, and no, just because they were Nephalem does not mean that their aura was unlocked already, it just means they can unlock it. In this fic, aura is, what can effectively be called, a byproduct of the mixing of demons blood and angel blood, so basically every living human and Faunus can have it. I should technically have given Tyrael some form of aura because he is a main character in this story, but that would break the sort of cannon we've got going here, so instead, I'm just substituting in magic angel powers that he still has. Equate it to the stunt he pulled against Maltheal in the Reaper of Souls cinematic trailer.)**

"First, they must hit us. Then they can damage us." Kharazim said confidently.

"True," Summer replied, "Then there are Deathstalkers. They're the scorpions that we fought. Big, strong, tough armor to break…"

"That I kicked and destroyed," Kharazim said nonchalantly, "Quite esaily, actually."

"Yes, but not everyone is you." Summer said, "Still, to the average hunter, one of them is more than enough. Finally, Goliaths. They look like the elephants we saw in Caldeum when we went there. Only these ones are black, have bone armor, yellow markings everywhere and red eyes to boot. They are by far the oldest and most intelligent Grimm. They are rarely sighted, and for any average hunter, they are a practical death sentence."

"Is that all of the Grimm that exist?" Nazeebo asked.

"I think so." Summer replied, "Unless in the ten years I have been away there has been some massive explosion in Grimm species."

"So…" Tyrael said, "You mentioned Faunus. What are they?"

"Faunus are like humans, but with animal features. Some of them have eyes based on the type of Faunus they are, some have ears, others have tails. Some have subtler features, like fingernails that extend like claws. Most of the Faunus try to hide their animal features though. Some cover their ears with long hair, etc."

"Why is that?" Tyrael asked.

"Racial prejudice," Summer replied, "Social injustices, unequal pay, practically forced slave labor, unequal service at restaurants and other venues, gang violence, that sorta stuff. They have been exploited by humans, so don't expect all Faunus to be friendly with us considering we are humans and they might not like us for that fact. Just a hint, don't try to act all high and mighty around them, some might take offense to it."

"Meh." Li-Ming said, "So they don't like humans and we just so happen to be humans. So, what? It's not our mission to make them feel good about us. We are just here to make sure that they don't all die because of Hell's armies that may or may not invade this world in order to kill everything. Who knows, after we save the world, they might like us?"

"Fair point, they don't have to like us nor do they have to believe that we are the greatest things ever, but we don't want to make enemies among the people here." Xul said, "We already have enough here that will know we are here soon enough."

* * *

 **Alright. Now that t** **hat is done, lets** **just a few things to clear up. One, even though this is coming out a day after I published the story, my update** **schedule** **will most** **likely** **be** **inconsistent** **at best. I'll try to get chapters out as fast as I can, but I subscribe to the Blizzard mentality of '** **Release** **when Ready'.**

 **Secondly, I am willing to introduce some other characters from Diablo into this story. Some have stories on Remnant, others don't. Just PM me if you have any suggestions on which characters I could bring in. Also, just saying, all dead Diablo human characters will stay dead. So I'm sorry for all the Leah lovers out there, but she ain't coming back.**

 **Thirdly, in regards to how powerful Summer is going to be, I'll try to make it as fair as I can in the grand scheme of things. Personally, I hate stories with a Deus Ex Machina character, simply because it follows the story of "Character X is trapped, but just before he dies, The Hero saves him/her!" and that is quite predictable and in some ways, quite boring.**

 **Finally, before anyone asks, yes, at one point in the story, there will be a cow level appearance. Dunno when I will find a time or place to shoehorn it in, but I'll be dammed if I don't**


	3. Chapter 3: Prime Evils

**Hello again, I'm back with the next installment of this story! As for what this chapter is going to be about, there are a few reveals this chapter that may clear some questions up for those people who have them. Now, onto the review responses.**

 **Artjom435: Yup, I also ship Qrow and Winter. If you want the funniest possible rendition of that little ship, check out RWBY: Warning from the Future by a guy called Patriot-112. Its how I got some inspiration for that bit with Weiss in chapter two.**

 **Bear of Cali: Yup, got it. Discussed it in PMs. Thanks for the suggestions.**

 **meeyaaargh3412: Honestly, that's the reason I wrote this fic in the first place. I always think of Summer as a sort of blank enough canvas, seeing as how her personality is never really shown in the show. She's a good character to write, and I like both seeing and writing fics where Summer and Ruby reunite. I feel that in the show, Ruby lacks a mother figure, sort of making her more than a bit... Depressed, in a way? Maybe? I find that if Summer comes back, Ruby can sort of open back up to the world.**

* * *

The universe. So vast, so unknown, so intriguing. But it wasn't always so large and impressive. It once was only one singular being. That being's name is Anu. Anu was everything, both good and evil. He encompassed all existence, but as he was existence, existence was him and he was alone. But that was not an issue to Anu. He had no problem with being forever alone, as being everything in existence means you are never truly alone. However, Anu did have an issue. He wished to be pure, only good and nothing more. So Anu, in his infinite wisdom, decided to cast the darkness inside him out, to throw it away, to discard it. And Anu was purely a being of good. He now encompassed all things good, those being Justice, Valor, Fate, Hope and Knowledge among other things as well. But all the evil that Anu cast off did not just disappear, nor did it remain dormant. The pure evil energy manifested itself, congregating into a massive, eight-headed dragon which called itself Tathamet.

 **(An: Yes, I know that Tathamet actually has only seven heads in Diablo cannon. I also don't care because this is fannon.)**

Tathamet embodied all things evil, those mainly being Destruction, Hate, Terror, Darkness, Pain, Agony, Lies, and Sin, among other things as well. Tathamet hated Anu, as good and evil can never truly live in harmony, and thus, Tathamet waged war on Anu, determined to destroy him, to eradicate good from the universe. The two behemoths fought for eternities, neither ever gaining an upper hand on the other. Eventually, after literal eons of fighting, they both died, both failed in their goals, their conflict over.

But the power they represented never truly dies.

Rather than them simply ceasing to exist as most things would, their power manifested in other ways, creating new worlds. Anu's spine became the Silver Spire, the pillar that sat at the heart of the heavens, where new angels are brought into existence, and his body the High Heavens themselves. The body of Tathamet, on the other hand, fell and became the Burning Hells. His heads became the Great Evils, four Prime Evils, the most powerful demons, and four Lesser Evils, second in power only to the Prime Evils themselves. The names of the Prime Evils were Mephisto, the Lord of Hate, Baal, the Lord of Destruction, Diablo, lord of Terror and Salem, the Lady of Darkness. The lesser evils were Andariel, Maiden of Anguish, Duriel, Lord of Pain, Belial, Lord of Lies and Azmodan, Lord of Sin. On the other side, there were Archangels. They were Malthael, Archangel of Knowledge, Auriel, Archangel of Hope, Itherael, Archangel of Fate, Tyrael, Archangel of Justice and Imperius, Archangel of Valor.

These two side of the Eternal Conflict fought for millennium over control of The Eye of Anu, the Worldstone. Salem, on the other hand, didn't fight in the war. She realized that it was no issue for her to deal with, and the fighting was pointless, seeing as the sides were evenly matched, thus there could be no victor. So she left, walking the endless void that was the rest of creation, doing everything but fight in the pointless war her siblings were caught up in. On her way, she discovered many things, like giant space squid gods and really big armies of demons that weren't controlled by Hell. But those are stories for other times, for it was then, on her journeys, that she discovered a second Worldstone, the second Eye of Anu. Initially, Salem contemplated the idea of telling her siblings of the second reality-bending god rock, but that idea was quickly pushed aside when she remembered the greed of demons, the same greed she shared with all her siblings, which also just so happened to be the reason that the Burning Hells never united under one banner, simply because they never would agree on who to lead. She wanted the power of the Worldstone for herself, and should her siblings be let in on her discovery, they would most likely try to take it from her. So, she shrouded the world behind a wall of magic and went to work on getting the stone for herself.

The stone, however, knew of this and created a protector for itself. It created The Wizard, the same one from the legends of the Maidens. The only major difference being that this wizard was more a power than anything human. He had no form, but he held consciousness and power. He tried to fight Salem and the battle turned into a stalemate, neither side gaining or losing any ground. This is around the time the Wizard begged the Worldstone to help him and it did, creating four spirits, the Maidens, along with blessing, or as some thought it to be cursing, all five of these spirits with infinite reincarnation. The Wizard would reincarnate into the body of a man, and the maidens would reincarnate into the body of a young woman close to the fallen maiden. As well, the Worldstone created four keys in the form of relics to keep itself safe and made it so only Maidens could unlock the vaults in which they were held. Later, arrived humans (descendants of Nephalem), and they later some were adapted to become Faunus. Salem's army of Grimm emerged to threaten the mortals, the Great War occurred, the Faunus rights war happened, and now, here they all are today, fighting over one of the greatest powers in the universe. And most of those fighting don't even know it exists.

* * *

 _The Grimlands… Six days before the Breach_

Salem sat on her chair in her counsel chamber in her ebony black castle. It was the head of the table, with her allies, or pawns, whichever, flanking her on either side, sitting in their own chairs, the group discussing things such as the goal they all strive for or how exactly they are going to try to take over reality this time. Salem had never before told the group before her of her intentions mainly because they fear her and what she can do. That is enough for her, as fear brings loyalty and if they are loyal, that is all that matters and they need not know the end goal. And to Salem, undivided loyalty is the best thing she could get in a world of traitorous humans.

"So," Arthur Watts, a genius, yet disgraced, Atlassian scientist, said, "Cinder Fall is in position, and she is ready to tear The Vytal festival apart. Though I must ask, once we have the Maiden's power and the adjoining relic, what comes next?"

Salem was quick to reply "It is quite simple, Arthur. We get more. We know of the other Maidens, we will find them, convert or kill them, and use their power to get the other relics. I believe I explained this to you before, Watts."

"And once we get the relics?" Hazel asked.

"Then we can mold the world to our desires, Hazel dear. We shape reality to our will, bend the rules of life and death." Salem said slyly. Not one of her inner circle knew the power that would truly be unlocked when the four relics were gathered. Only she knew the raw reality warping power of the Worldstone. Then again, she was the only one old enough to have borne witness to its strength.

"I must know, Watts, are you positive the virus has what it takes to work on the CCT tower?" Salem asked to Watts.

"Will I am disgraced by Atlas," Watts retorted, "That doesn't mean that I don't make a good virus. Putting it fairly, we definitely will be able to hack the AK-200's."

"Very good. When we are ready, we will turn their own weapons on the fools of Atlas." Salem smirked, "Just be sure it works."

Watts bowed and said, "Yes my Queen."

It was then that she heard the knock at door. It was not just a knock, rather it was a pounding at that door signaling that someone had arrived. As Hazel went to go and get the door, it burst open, nearly flying off its hinges and three figures walked in.

Hazel had a look of visual confusion on his face and asked the strangers, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Really?" the first man said, with a maniacal glint in his eye that would make Tyrian shit his pants, "Did our dear sister not tell you of our arrival?"

"You… are… here. This was… unexpected. Regardless, welcome, Mephisto, Baal, Diablo. Welcome to my humble abode." Salem said.

"Salem, how do you know them?" Arthur asked as the three men sat down. The first, the man with the look of a maniac was Baal the lord of Destruction, the middle brother. The second was a man who radiated hate, distaste, wrath. He was Mephisto, Lord of Hate. Finally, the last had a red crystal impaled in his forehead, and to be honest, everyone, save his siblings, was terrified of him. He was Diablo, Lord of Terror.

"Well then, brothers, with your timely intrusion, I guess I have to reveal what I truly am." Salem said sarcastically, "Thanks for that."

Diablo chuckled, "There is no issue with revealing your demonic heritage to these mortals. After all, they do serve you."

"Very well," Salem said, "Arthur, Hazel. I am indeed a demon. My name is Salem and my domains are that over Darkness, thus my title, the Lady of Darkness. Any questions from either of you?"

"Uhm… just one." Watts said, "Does this change our goal and our reward?"

"Of collecting the relics?" Salem said, "No, it doesn't, though it will not be by their hand that we shape the world. Rather, they are simply the key to the power we will use to unlock this world. As for your reward, that is also not changed, you might even get more. Now, Watts, Hazel, leave us. I have a lot of catching up to do with my brothers."

Hazel nodded and said "Yes, my Queen." As he and Arthur left the room.

"Funny how those mortals think. They think they will be rewarded. Now that those two are gone…" Salem said looking at her brothers, "Did any Angels follow you to this place?"

"No." Diablo said, "However, there may have been some Nephalem that did follow us."

"Which Nephalem?" Salem asked.

"The ones that defeated us, sister dear." Mephisto replied.

Salem looked with a shocked expression at her brothers "Please tell me that they don't have…"

"A Black Soulstone?" Baal said, "No, that was destroyed by Malthael when the fool of an Angel tried to purge the demon blood from Sanctuary by killing all humans. They would need a Horadric mage to create another one. And, sadly there are none of those left. Poor old Cain."

Salem then asked, "How many Nephalem came?"

"We believe eight, though one was a fallen angel. Tyrael, if you remember, the Archangel of Justice." Baal replied.

"With one already here…" Salem said, "This could be quite difficult."

"Which one, if I may ask?" Diablo asked.

"I do not know her name, but one of her children trains at the Huntsman Academy that we are targeting first." Salem replied, venom itching at her words like a snake, "She has slain so many of my children here… her presence angers me so much…"

"Do the others know of her existence here?" Mephisto asked.

"I do not believe so. They must think her to be dead. It has to have been twenty years since those who knew her have seen her, after all." Salem said. "Even then, a single one could shift the scales ever so slightly in their favour."

"Well, in that case, we must prepare for the final assault on the 'Academy' as you call it." Diablo grunted, "Do you have an… infiltrator in the Academy that you wish whipped off the map?"

"Of course. Your lessons of plotting never will escape me." Salem replied, smirking.

"Good. We will need to keep a personal eye on her. Might I suggest Belial?" Mephisto said.

"As long as we keep him on a short leash, yes that would be a grand idea." Salem said, "Who knows, it might speed up the plan."

"What of your puppet? Should we let them in on our plans?" Baal asked.

Salem thought about it. Cinder trusted her, and she had to maintain that trust. Unlike her other mortal minions, if Cinder turned against her, the results could be devastating, and her plans could fall apart. So, she responded "Yes, we shall, as a precaution. Come, brothers. We have someone to contact."

* * *

 _Beacon Academy dorms…_

It had been a few days since Cinder, Emerald and Mercury infiltrated Beacon Academy. Only a few. And Cinder was already on top of the world. In just a few short weeks, she would obtain something most people would only dream of becoming. She would become a Maiden, something she dreamed of since she first heard the story. Something she longed for, to have power dancing at her fingertips, to be able to do as she pleases. She was currently sitting on her bed, thinking about what she could do her powers when she obtained them, eyes closed. It was then that Salem called on the Seer. The Seer, or Eye Grimm, as Emerald often referred to it as, was her primary message of communication between her and Salem. Being that it was Salem calling, Cinder wished to know what was going on.

As the Seer' ball flickered to life, Salem, along with three new faces, appeared. Faces that Cinder did not recognize and had never seen in her life. The first of the three looked gaunt in its features, with two bony looking horns coming out of his head and a pale face. He radiated Hate, pure and untouched, seeming to feed off of it. There was so much hate coming from this one man it was almost like he was constantly thinking, ' _I hate that, and that, and that to. But most importantly, I hate that really little thing over there. A lot.'_ The second looked evil, but also more human, but also very, very evil. He had had a less pale looking face, but also a smile that looked like it would give Tyrian a run for his money in the psychological department. He also looked like the kind of guy who would love for nothing more than a giant explosion to level Vale and kill everyone there for fun. The last one had glowing red eyes, with a giant red crystal impaled in his forehead. Cinder attempted to look away from him as much as possible, as he terrified her in every possible way one could feel terror. She didn't know why, but these three people struck her as… off, to say the least. They weren't normal in the slightest.

"My lady," Cinder said timidly, trying not to anger the three men in the back, "You have summoned me?"

"Yes, Cinder, I have. I am contacting you for two reasons. The first, I would like to introduce you to my brothers." Salem said.

"Your brothers?" Cinder asked in a confused way.

"Yes. Firstly, this," Salem turned and pointed at the man with the horns, "Is Mephisto, my oldest brother and the Lord of Hate."

"Hello, Cinder Fall." Mephisto said, his mouth sounding like someone trying to gurgle hydrochloric acid, making Cinder cringe with every one of the three words he spoke.

Salem then gestured to the man with the evil smile and crazy eyes "This is Baal, the second oldest of the brothers and the Lord of Destruction."

"How do you do, little one?" Baal asked. Cinder did not feel comfortable responding to a man that looks like he wants to kill babies in front of their parents just for the laughs.

"And finally," Salem said, pointing to the tall crystal-in-forehead guy "This is Diablo, my 'Twin' as some would say and the Lord of Terror."

"Greetings." Was all the seven-foot-tall man said. Honestly, Cinder was glad that was all he said. If he talked any more, she may have crapped in her nice white panties, which would take forever to wash out. That would also explain the pure fright she felt for him.

"My lady, if I may, what exactly are they doing? There, I mean." Cinder asked.

"They are helping us complete our mission, of course." Salem replied, "On to the main reason why I summoned you. You will be getting a fourth member of your team. He will arrive in the next week or so and is named Belial. It is crucial that you never call him that name, however. There are people who would immediately investigate you should they find out you are working with him. Call him Belian in public. And for that matter, in private as well."

"If it is so dangerous to send him, why send him?" Cinder asked.

"Because," responded Diablo, "Belial is a master of deception. He once tricked a whole city into thinking he was its ruler. His identity will be safe, so long as you don't screw with his lies."

"How do we know he can be trusted?" Cinder asked.

"Because, we Lord over him," replied Baal, "After the Sin war, the great exile and his defeat in Caldeum, he will never betray us again. I have made sure of that. Besides, we share a common enemy, there is no need for betrayal."

Cinder thought about it for a second and said, "Very well then, I will meet him when he comes."

"Good girl," Salem purred, "You are my most valuable asset. Once all is said and done, you will be very well rewarded."

"Thank you, my queen." Cinder said, before the Seer shut off.

As Cinder walked back to the beds, slightly shaken from her encounter, Emerald asked "What was that about?"

"The Queen is sending help our way." Cinder replied, "Our new teammate comes some time soon."

* * *

Salem looked at the black ball of the Seer, contemplating what to do next. Of course, as she knew this world the best, she would be the one to orchestrate the forces of Hell in their assaults on Remnant. But, before they began…

"Will Azmodan show up?"

"That is... Unknown at the moment. Without him, the army of Sin will not follow." Diablo replied, "And that is a problem."

"That doesn't matter." replied Salem, "Better that we bring all of our forces here than to leave some behind. To win this war, we will need everything we have."

"Very good point." Mephisto said, "I suppose The Army of Sin can join us… if Azmodan cooperates."

"He will." Diablo replied, "Whether he joins us us willingly or not is his choice. But he will join us, and he will obey."

* * *

 _A few days later, after dance… Three days till the Breach…_

 _The dream. The same dream. The steaming corpses of Grimm and some other creatures littering the forest floor, the howls of more on the way and the screams of people being killed in the most horrid of ways. The white snow, covering the ground in a thick layer. The blood drenching the white floor, making the snow she stood on slick to the touch. It was the same, yet different. The crushing sounds of trees and houses sounded behind her, the screams and howls of both people and... inhuman beings perforated the air. She began to run away from the sounds. She ran after the white cloaked figure in the distance, as she always did. The figure began to walk, the space between the two people decreasing bit by bit, as she got closer to the one she longed to see again._

 _Her legs began to burn again, screaming out in pain as she urged them forward. She felt herself again gaining on the figure. Just a few feet behind the white cloaked figure, she began to push herself, crying out to them. Pleading them to stop going away, to come back home. The figure ignored it all, continuing to walk away._

 _She urged herself on again, in a full sprint. Just as she was about to grab the figures shoulder, the ground came away from beneath them. And they fell down into the deep below._

 _The figure turned to her. Her face barely visible under her hood, despite the speeds at which they were falling. The figure then did something unexpected. Something the figure in her dream had never done before. The figure hugged her, as they tumbled into the darkness below. As tears welled in her eyes, the figure once again spoke, as they did when she first had the dream again._

" _I love you, Ruby. I always will. Never forget that."_

* * *

 _Beacon Academy Dorms…_

The first noise Ruby heard when she woke up was not the sound of a shower being had, nor was it the sound of Yang snoring with a determination to level the school. No, the noise that woke Team RWBY up from their peaceful slumber was that of Pyrrha kicking down their door, for whatever reason.

"Pyrrha… why did you kick down our door…?" Weiss asked groggily.

"Because," Pyrrha said, dragging Weiss out of her bed by her head, "Twenty minutes ago, my mother called me and told me she was coming. Knowing my mother, she would also want to see those who I consider my friends."

"Couldn't you have just knocked?" Blake said, quite annoyed at Pyrrha for interrupting her cat style beauty sleep.

"I have been," Pyrrha said "For the past ten minutes. So, get the heck up we gotta go now!"

As Pyrrha raced out the door to go to Team STNL (Sentinel), Team RWBY looked at each other and shrugged. This was going to be a long day. A very long day.

 **(A.n: Team STNL is basically the all-male love interests of Team RWBY. S with W, T with R, N with B and L with Y. So there. As for why they weren't introduced earlier, that's because reasons that will be shown later. They will be introduced next chapter in detail and will be references to games and books.)**

* * *

Both Team RWBY and Team JNPR stood at the landing dock watching the bullheads pull up to them.

Ruby looked over at Jaune and asked, "She drag you out of bed to?"

Jaune, along with Nora and Ren, nodded and Ren replied "I have almost never seen Pyrrha this happy for anything. It is truly strange"

"Well, it is her mom." Yang said, still with some bed head because Pyrrha didn't give her enough time to wash all of her hair, "She has a right to be excited."

"Yeah, but she really didn't give any of us enough time to get ready! I mean, look at me! I look horrible!" Jaune complained while gesturing to his mucked up hair, shirt and pants. It had been a few days since the dance and since Pyrrha confesses her attraction to Jaune to his face with a kiss. Since then, they had been pseudo dating, not really dating, not sleeping in the same bed, nothing of the sort. But now and then they did share a kiss in public, maybe an awkward touch here and there. But since Jaune heard that Pyrrha's mom was coming, he knew he was in for some serious shit.

"Jaune, you look fine. You'll do just great." Pyrrha said, "I promise I won't let my mother tear you apart. If it was my father… well… just be happy it is my mother."

Just then, the final bullhead landed, it's ramp opened and out came a 6-foot-tall, well built, middle aged woman with long red hair and blueish green eyes, in combat armor similar to Pyrrha's with a trident and shield on her back. She also wore a similar tiara crown headdress thing to Pyrrha, only hers covered the sides of her head completely and had some wings with gold and red metal feather on it. Everyone, save Pyrrha, stared at her, unsure of what to do. Pyrrha, on the other hand, bolted at the woman and cried "Mom!"

"That's her mother?!" Jaune said, "Oum save me. I am so screwed."

* * *

 **Now Pyrrha's mom is here! Yay! Can you guess who it is? Hint, it is a named character from Diablo lore. You may need to dive deeper into some other blizzard games to find out who she is. PM me if you think you figured out who she is. Her name will be revealed in the next chapter.**

 **Secondly, are any of you as big of a nerd as I am? If you are, you may have noticed two Easter eggs about two other Blizzard games that I personally enjoy.**

 **Finally, if anyone wants to talk about the Star Wars: The Clone Wars trailer that just recently dropped, feel free to PM me. I personally can't wait for it to finally come out.**

 **Alrighty, this is Narsauce signing off. See you in the next upload!**


	4. Chapter 4: Mothers (New Idea)

**Sup. Yes, I'm back. With another chapter. Again. God damn, I really have to time these better, ya'll might start thinking that I can push out chapters as fast as a minigun shoots out bullets. The fact of the matter is, I wrote the first few chapters before I actually published the first chapter, so this is one of them. The next chapter will be the first one that I have to actively write, so expect a little bit longer of a delay to its release. Onto the next little portion of this authors note, the replying to the reviews!**

 **HalFF: Well, that's what this chapter is for, revealing some other people in the story. Namely, Pyrrha's mom and team STNL. I've made the characters references to a few different things. The references are the graphic novel 'Amulet', the games 'Overwatch', 'KoToR' and 'Street Fighter', in tht order. And, as for the interactions between Li-Ming and Qrow... well, let's just say they will be... Electrifying... and somewhat firey.**

 **Finally, it has come to my attention that I have not done the disclaimers that should be done at the beginning of the story. So, here it is. I don't own anything, all properties are owned by their respective companies, RT owns RWBY and Blizzard owns Diablo, blah blah blah blah ONTO THE STORY!**

* * *

Cassia Nikos. She was a great leader, an Amazon warrior and most surprisingly of all, she was a mother. Being a mother was something she never thought she would be. She was an Amazon, a warrior woman. Back in the day, when she lived with her Amazon sisters, she never thought that she would ever even have to deal with having a child, never thought she would have to deal with the trouble of marriage.

Yet here she was. With a daughter and a husband.

It happened twenty years ago when she was first taken to this world. The first few days on Remnant were spent in Mistral and Cassia didn't know what to do in this new world. She saved a town from the Grimm and saved a huntsman named Marcus Nikos. After a few weeks, the two became like partners. They fought together and saved town after town. Over the next year, they grew closer, and eventually, they got married. It was a surprise for Cassia, being proposed to and all. After a year of being married together, around seventeen years and ten months ago, Marcus convinced her to bear a child. Cassia was once again hesitant. She heard the difficulties and pain that labor brought from other women she had become invested in. But she was an Amazon. She had endured being impaled by Duriel when they fought for god's sake! She could take a bit of pain in her pelvis! So, she and Marcus tried to conceive a child.

It was hell. And Cassia would know. She's been.

During the next nine or so months, Cassia experienced cramps, cravings, hormone imbalances, fits of extreme heat and cold, as well as her being exceptionally tired. Worst of all was the bulge her stomach had formed. She couldn't put on her armor, so she couldn't go out with her husband on missions. Of course, during that time Marcus was off on missions, she thought of names for their child. If it was a boy, she wanted to name him Phenic, because it sounds like Phoenix, and if it was a girl, she wanted to name her Pyrrha, which means Flame-Coloured in the language she was raised in.

Being an Amazon made her feel invincible, ready for anything that would come her way, no matter what it is or when it comes.

She wasn't ready for labor.

Even after the labor had finished and her newborn baby girl lay in her arms, wrapped tightly in blankets so that only her face was showing, she was still ravaged by pain. The baby girl, however, was beautiful, her pride and joy. She even had little red hairs growing from her head. Cassia felt immediately attached to her daughter like glue. All Cassia hoped was that her daughter was not like her. She hoped that she was not Nephalem.

* * *

 _Beacon, present day…Three days before the Breach_

"Mom!" Pyrrha cried as she charged her mother. The older woman smiled as her daughter jumped up in her arms giving her a huge hug, nearly tackling the older woman to the ground.

Cassia looked at her daughter and kissed her cheek before letting her down and saying, "How are you, Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha suddenly went rigged as she faced her mother and said "Fine, thank you. Where's dad?"

"Oh, you know him. Off coaching some up and coming Minstrel Tournament Champion." Cassia said, as her daughter got a saddened look on her face, "He sends his love."

As Pyrrha looked up at her mother with pride filling her eyes, Cassia motioned to the group behind her, before asking "I assume those are your friends, correct?"

Pyrrha quickly responded with a "Yes mother. They are."

Then everyone went silent. After a few minutes of silence, Cassia looked a Pyrrha and said. "Well then. Pyrrha, are you not going to introduce me?"

"Oh, right. Sorry…" Pyrrha said, scratching her head in embarrassment.

She then turned to the assembled teams and said "Well, these are Teams JNPR and RWBY. Team STNL should be here soon."

The aforementioned teams that are present waved and Cassia then said, "I am assuming the team you are on is JNPR, correct?"

"Yes!" Pyrrha said excitedly, "This is my team leader and partner, Jaune Arc. Say hi, Jaune."

"Hi." Said Jaune. Cassia rolled her eyes and smiled. She got the message about the crush Pyrrha had on Jaune Arc… by the gods, did Pyrrha have her work cut out for her if she was going to whip him into shape.

"These are Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren." Pyrrha said, gesturing to the two other members of team JNPR.

"Hello, Pyrrha's mom." Nora said in a surprisingly calm tone. Cassia deduced that she was the bruiser of the group, simply because of the weapon she carried. Also, from the amount that she was fidgeting, Cassia could tell that she had some form of ADHD.

"Hello, Mrs. Nikos." Ren said. From his posture, Cassia could tell that he was by far the most level headed of the group. In fact, he barely displayed any emotion at all. Which she was quite surprised by. Ren, to her, seemed like an adult in a child's body with the way he held himself.

"Then this is Team RWBY." Pyrrha said, pointing at the other present team. "Their leader is Ruby Rose, her partner is Weiss Schnee, then there is Blake Belladonna, and finally, Ruby's older sister Yang Xiao Long."

"It's a pleasure." Weiss said, as she curtsied.

"Hello." Blake said,looking quite happy.

"Well, at least Pyrrha got something from her mother." Yang said, before muttering "Does this mean Pyrrha will have bigger tits than me? That must never come to pass. I will get implants if I must."

Ruby said nothing, rather she was drooling over the weapons on Cassia's back. Quickly, she leapt forward and said "Ohmygoshthoseweaponsaresocoolwhataretheirnames," she took a breath "Whatdotheydoohmygoshohmygosh."

"Pardon?" Cassia said surprised as the young Rose rushes around her at Mach two.

Yang chuckled before pulling her sister back and saying "Yeah, sorry about her… she's a bit of a weapons nut. You shoulda seen her with her boyfriend's juicy guns."

With that, Ruby turned as red as a strawberry and said "Yang! He's not my boyfriend and his weapons aren't juicy!"

Everyone stayed silent before bursting out laughing, Cassia smirked and rolled her eyes as the young Rose continued to blush like mad. It was interesting to see young people going through the labors of love, seeing them do the things that she once did. But now, it was slightly less professional, what with...

"Ahem."

Interrupting Cassia's train of thought, team STNL made themselves known to the group.

Standing at the head of the group was Silas Charon, the team's leader. He stood at six feet tall with light blond hair and blue eyes. He had a scar going down the left side of his face, barely missing his eyes. He wore jeans and a red shirt with a fancy blue colored amulet around his neck and a large single edged sword that glowed blue on his back called _Ghost_. His semblance allowed him to create objects by channeling his aura into the amulet which made him very versatile in a fight.

Standing on his left was Tyrion McCree. He stood at five feet eleven inches, with a mess of brown hair on his head and the starting of a beard on his chin. He had hazel eyes and lightly tanned skin. He wore a brown trench-coat with a cowboy hat, that had a belt of bullets and a mini shield thing on its front. He wielded a weapon called _Deadeye_ , which was a revolver/short sword hybrid. His semblance slowed time for everyone but him for a short amount of time, which allowed him to pull off some cheeky stunts in a fight.

Next to Tyrion stood Nihilus Avern. He was around six feet two inches and with black hair and pale skin and his eyes were yellow. He was an all-black cloak that was draped around his back and along with his arms. He had a katana strapped to his waist, with a four-chambered revolver thing at its hilt with lightning dust in it, called _Sabre_. His semblance allowed him to absorb dust to grant him different powers, like fire dust would allow him to throw fire, ice to freeze things, etc.

Finally, next to Silas on his right, stood Lewis Ryu at exactly six foot three inches tall. He had blue eyes, short brown hair and brown skin. He had a muscle shirt, which outlined his six pack and his muscular arms. On his arms were his Smg gauntlets, _Fire and Fury_ , that reached up to his elbows. His semblance granted him extreme geo-kinesis, or the ability to control earth and stone.

"Hello there, Rose." Said Tyrion. Ruby blushed at him saying that. This confirmed to Cassia that, indeed Ruby did have a crush on Tyrion.

"Tyrion," Silas said, "We aren't here to flirt. We are here to meet Pyrrha's mother."

"Right…" Tyrion said, gesturing to Weiss' blushing face, "If the look on Weiss' face will ever give me any reason to think that."

Silas rolled his eyes before he turned to Cassia and said "Greetings, Ms. Nikos."

Cassia nodded and replied, "Please, just call me Cassia."

"Howdy." Tyrion said, tipping his hat.

"Hello, ma'am." Nihilus said while bowing.

"Greetings," Lewis said while standing casually with his arms crossed.

Cassia smiled, looking over the teams present. She smiled because her daughter had friends. Real friends, for the first time in her life. During her life, Pyrrha never had actual friends because of her fame. People could never relate to her on a personal level because she was THE Pyrrha Nikos, the four-time winner of the Minstrel Tournament. She was never just Pyrrha. Never just a regular girl. Now, mind you, some of this was Cassia's fault, seeing as how she pushed Pyrrha to her limits and encouraged her to be in the tournament.

"Well…" Cassia said, "It's been wonderful meeting you all."

Pyrrha then looked at her mother and asked "Umm, mom? Can we have a spar? It's been so long since we've spared."

Cassia smiled and said "Sure. Get your weapons, all of you, and meet in the arena in twenty minutes."

The teams cheered, and Yang said "Alright! Fighting Pyrrha's mom!"

* * *

 _Branwen tribe territory in Vale…_

Raven Branwen is usually a calm and collected person. She was like an inverse of her brother, Qrow. Where he was an alcoholic, she rarely drank anything containing alcohol, rather, she drank tea. Where Qrow was impulsive, Raven was a tactician, always planning and rarely going in head first. Where Qrow stayed loyal to Ozpin after all these years, Raven… well, Raven didn't.

Raven left Taiyang and her daughter, Yang, almost as soon as she gave birth to the young girl. It wasn't because she didn't love them, she really did. She loved Yang more than her own life. But when she became the Spring maiden, she knew she would be targeted. She knew her family would be targeted. So, she left, left to go back to her tribe. She never told anyone about her being a maiden, not even Qrow.

Currently, Raven was watching her tribespeople enter the camp with the haul of resources they looted from a town. Mind you, Raven didn't like to kill innocent people. She was still a huntress after all, regardless of what she had done.

As Raven continued to think, one of her men ran up to her and kneeled before saying "My lady."

"Speak." Raven said as Vernal, her second in command, walked up beside her.

The man gulped and said "Ma'am, on the raid you sent to Isenhill, we encountered a group of eight people. Huntsmen, I think. They beat us back easily with these weird abilities."

Raven raised an eyebrow and thought, " _Never leave a job for a huntress to a bandit."_

She then said, "Did any of them follow you?"

The bandit shook his head and said, "I don't think so m'lady."

"Good," Raven replied, "Now get back to work."

As the bandit ran off to help people unload, Raven muttered "Useless. Idiot."

It was then that she heard a knock on the gate, which escalated into a banging, which further escalated into someone breaking the gate open, causing a cloud of dust to be put into the air. Raven quickly threw on her Grimm mask and stood with her arms crossed at the entrance of her tent.

Out of the dust walked a few people that Raven didn't recognize. From the front, one of the men, Kharazim (though Raven didn't know that tidbit of information), called out "Raven Branwen! We have found you…"

Raven glared at Kharazim and the rest of the Nephalem before saying "Who are you and why do you intrude on our territories?"

The Knight looking one, Johanna, replied "My name is Johanna. This is Kharazim, Nazeebo, Tyrael, Sonya, Xul, and Li-Ming. As for…"

"Hold up." Raven said, interrupting Johanna and earning a glare from her, "I get the feeling that you're missing someone… important."

Tyrael chuckled and said "You are perceptive, just like she said. The reason Johanna didn't introduce her is mainly because she wanted to do that herself."

"Really?" Raven replied.

"Really." Another voice said. That voice. It sent a shiver down Raven's spine. It belonged to someone dead. Someone who was supposed to be dead, at least. The group of seven parted, revealing an eighth member dressed in a white cloak.

That same white cloak that Summer Rose wore.

Raven slowly took off her Grimm mask, dropping it to the ground. She rested her hand on the hilt of her sword, as her mouth was agape in shock. Summer was dead. She had to be. But here she was, standing before her, with the white cloak billowing in the wind.

"S… S… S… Summer…?" Raven stuttered as the figure nodded. Raven rushed forward and hugged her friend, tears dripping from her eyes. Summer hugged her back, pulling her in close. They stayed together for several minutes and when Raven broke the hug, she asked "How are you alive? We all thought you were dead!"

Summer chuckled, seeming more battle-hardened than the Summer Rose that left on that fateful mission a decade ago and replied "I'll explain that later. Right now, we have got a bigger problem."

"What?" Raven asked, "What do you mean?"

"I'll explain everything. Do you have anything to drink?" Summer asked as Raven ushered the group into her tent. Today would be another long day for all the parties involved.

* * *

 _Combat class arena… Three days to Breach_

Cassia stood in the combat class arena, with her trident and shield in hand. She watched as the three teams gathered in the arena, ready and waiting to begin. Somehow, Cassia managed to convince Glynda Goodwitch to supervise the fight, even though Glynda was very much against the fight. But that was mostly because Glynda didn't want to have to clean up after it.

Cassia chuckled at Glynda's concern, which strangely was not directed at the students. She assured her that the fight would not get out of hand, seeing as she was a fully trained warrior, against twelve children. This might be an unfair fight… for them.

As the students readied their weapons, Cassia shouted, "Begin!"

The students charged at Cassia, the first to reach her being Ruby due to her speed semblance. Cassia raised her shield and blocked the strike by the young girl and threw her off, only to rush forward in a shield bash, knocking the young girl back.

Weiss and Silas quickly came up from behind her and attempted to get a quick attack in. Cassia blocked Weiss' thrusting strike with her shield and used her trident to sweep Weiss off her feet. She then struck Weiss with the blunt end of her spear, knocking her out of the ring and eliminating her. Silas used his semblance to conjure a spear from his amulet and launched it at Cassia. Cassia thrust her trident forward and launched a blast of lightning at the boy, shattering his spear and shocking him. Though he wasn't out just yet, he was stunned.

Tyrion and Nihilus ran forward. As they did, Nihilus took a red dust crystal out of his cloak and absorbed it. He began launching blasts of fire at Cassia, who blocked the blasts with her shield. Tyrion used his semblance to slow time down a bit, drawing Deadeye and firing a few shots off at Cassia. The shots connected, dropping Cassia's aura a bit, causing her to winch in a slight pain. It was then that Cassia used her Valkyrie charge, launching an ethereal version of herself at Tyrion, who couldn't dodge in time. The Valkyrie connected with Tyrion and threw him at the Amazon. She spin-kicked him in the head, sending him flying off the arena floor. Nihilus raised Saber and cut down, only to be blocked by Cassia's trident. Flipping it around, Cassia grabbed his arm and threw him forward, launching him out of the arena and eliminating him.

Suddenly, Blake, Yang, Lewis, Nora, and Ren shot forward to avenge their fallen comrades. Cassia smirked at the battle tactics of the first-year students. Or rather, their lack of tactics. Quickly she summoned some ball lightning and launched it at the group. It hit Blake first Yang, then Lewis, then Ren and finally Nora. Everyone, save Nora, was knocked unconscious from the attack. Nora seemed to be empowered, and she leapt high in the air, crashing her hammer down on the shield that Cassia held. The impact hurt a bit, causing Cassia to shudder. Quickly thrusting her trident forward multiple times, she shredded Nora's aura, before performing a kick to the pink girl's head.

Finally, only Pyrrha, Jaune and Cassia remained standing. Cassia quickly closed the distance between the two, leaping up and slamming the butt of the Trident into the ground, sending a shockwave out which made Jaune fall on his butt and Pyrrha to stumble. Quickly, Cassia shot her trident forward and slammed it into Jaune's shield, sending him back. Jaune swung at her with Crocea Mors, only to be surprised by Cassia who simply caught the sword with her left hand. She ripped the blade out of his hands, before kicking him, Spartan style, out of the arena.

Pyrrha then configured Milo into rifle form and shot some bullets at Cassia. Cassia blocked the bullets with her shield and rushed forward again, catching Pyrrha off guard. Another shield slam and trident strike later, and Pyrrha was out. Cassia smirked, extending her arm to her daughter. Pyrrha eagerly accepted and got up, as the rest of the twelve got up, groaning in pain.

"Ma'am, you are altogether too good at this." Tyrion said, helping Ruby up.

"Thank you." Cassia said, "I've had a lot of practice."

"Mom…" Pyrrha said, "Don't you think you were a bit too rough?"

"Nonsense!" Cassia said, "You kids can still stand, right?"

"Yup." Ruby said cheerfully, "Though it does hurt to stand."

"I must say," Weiss commented as Silas helped her up, "Your fighting style is quite unique."

"It's meant for efficiency, removing opponents from a fight in the quickest way possible while using the least amount of energy possible." Cassia replied, "I also use less flare the most people while fighting."

"Ah." Weiss said, dusting herself off "That explains that then."

"I could teach you all how to fight efficiently if you like. You could all use the training." Cassia said.

Ruby looked up, wide-eyed and said "Yay! Combat classes with Pyrrha's mom!"

* * *

Summer sipped the tea Raven had made for the group. As she did, they all conversed, talking about things, catching up on Remnant's current events. Over the course of the conversation, Summer talked about Sanctuary, the places she's seen, the things she fought. Raven was astounded, but she also realized why Summer seemed more battle hardened. That's because she was, spending the last ten years fighting a war against beings that made Raven cringe. Butcher demons literally sewed from the flesh and bones of other demons. Mallet lords, towering monstrosities that used their massive legs to smash any and everything. But what frightened Raven most of all, were the Prime Evils. As the group continued to tell Raven about the Prime Evils, she got increasingly more and more distressed. They told her of Bastion's Keep, Tristram, Caldeum, Westmarch. They told her of the horrors that they had seen, witnessed with their own eyes. In the end, Raven was shell-shocked, unsure of what to do.

"So," Raven said, her shaky hands picking up her tea, "What you are telling me, is that there is this army from literal hell coming to claim this artifact of great power that can be found somewhere on Remnant. Correct?"

"Exactly." Tyrael replied.

"Well shit." Raven said, "So, do you know their first move?"

"Yes." Summer replied "Spread fear, hate and destruction. Those are what the Prime Evils thrive on. And we now know that there is a fourth, thanks to Tyrael here. Salem."

"The Grimm witch, huh?" Raven replied, "This could be interesting."

"So…" Summer said, putting her tea down, "Guys, I need to talk to Raven alone. So… could you… y'know."

"No problem." Kharazim replied, "Come on, let's go."

After all of them were out of the tent, Summer turned to Raven with a glare in her eye and said, "Raven. I have only one question I need you to answer."

"And that is?" Raven asked, nervously.

"Why did you leave?"

…

…

"What?" Raven said, confused.

"Why did you leave us? Why did you leave team STRQ? We were a family… And you left us to rot!" Summer said, "Why?"

"I did it because…" Raven began to reply.

"None of that tribal bullshit! We both know that you never wanted to go back!" Summer yelled, "What is the real reason?"

Raven sighed. Time to reveal the truth. She began by saying, "Summer… do you know the legend of the four Maidens?"

Summer nodded and signaled her to continue, "Well… Summer, I am one of those Maidens. The Spring one to be specific."

"How long have you known?" Summer asked.

"I… I became the Spring Maiden only a month after Yang was born." Raven said, "Dunno how or why, but I did. Ozpin told me about being a maiden, and about the things I could do. I was ecstatic about it, just so much power at my fingertips but… but then he got to the part about… the witch. He said she would stop at nothing to take that power from me. I knew Yang and Tai would be targeted by her because of me. So… I left and gave the bitch no reason to hurt either of them. Summer, I loved them then, and I still love them all now."

"Oh…" Summer said, "You do know Yang is probably looking for you, right?"

"Yeah. Qrow has told me." Raven replied.

"You also do know that it's not too late to come back, right?"

"Yes… I hope…" Raven said.

"It's never too late." Summer said, "But if you keep staying away, you're just digging yourself a deeper hole."

"I… I guess you're right..." Raven said.

Summer smiled at her friend and said, "Well, in that case, since you seem sincere, you are coming with us to Vale."

"What?!" Raven said, her tone of voice shifting from sad to defensive, "Summer…"

"Nah-ah-ah." Summer said, "You are coming back. And because I'm nice, I'm going to give you a choice. You can either come back home in two ways. You either come back willingly, with us. Or… I knock you out, tie you up and we keep walking to Vale with you dragging by your hair behind us."

"Uhh… is there an option three?" Raven asked, hopefully.

"Nope." Summer replied, "Those two are your options. Now, choose. Before I chose for you."

"In that case…" Raven replied, "Option… one."

"Good choice. Welcome back to the team, Raven." Summer said, hugging her friend tightly and smiling brightly.

As Raven hugged her back, she said, "What do you think Tai and Yang will think, us coming back and all?"

"I don't know how Yang will react, but I think Tai and Ruby will be good." Summer replied, "At first, for the very least."

As Summer got back up, she looked at her sister-in-law of sorts, and pulled Raven into a standing position, before saying, "I just think they'll be happy to have you back, Raven."

"Same thing with you, Summer." Raven replied, "Probably more than for me."

* * *

 **Alrighty, that's the end of that. First thing I would like to say, I find that Raven's Semblance is a bit underpowered in my mind. It's basically a fast travel from any open-world RPG, only she has to know the person she wants to travel to personally and has to develop a bond with them. My sort of buff to it allows her to open portals to wherever she wishes, allowing her to use it in combat. However, the amount she is drained by using the portal is equal to the distance traveled with it and whether or not the person or place she travels to has a sort of bond with her in any way. If she has a bond, she can basically travel from anywhere to them. If she doesn't, the amount of energy is based on distance.**

 **As for the semblances of Team STNL, Silas can make energy constructs out of his aura, Tyrion can slow time for everyone but himself so that he can hit shots easier, Nihilus can absorb powers and abilities from both people and dust, People granting him the knowledge to use the abilities and dust simply granting him the elemental powers corresponding to the crystal he absorbed. Lewis can make the ground shake, like the Earthbender from Avatar: The last Airbender and Legend of Korra.**

 **Next, I would like to prototype a fic of an XCom and RWBY fic that I've been working on. It is not as far along, but it's getting there. Here's a little bit of the first chapter for all you readers. Let me know how you think it is!**

* * *

The first thing Gabriel saw when he woke up was Angela in his face. Not that it was a bad thing, and also not unknown to the married pair, just uncommon on duty. Angela was very professional.

It was then he realized that she was unconscious. Which was not right. It was also then that he noticed that the skyranger crashed into a forest full of green trees.

"Angela, get up," Gabriel said tapping her head a bit. Angela's eyes slowly opened as she registered the situation.

"Did you get the license of the truck that hit us?" Angela asked rhetorically.

"Nope," Gabriel replied cheerily. Angela rolled her eyes as she kissed him and got up.

Slowly, Darren and Anne came to and Darren asked, "What the hell happened?"

"Dunno," Gabriel said, shrugging, "But it happened."

Anne chuckled as she brought out her GREMLIN drone, which was still working for some godforsaken reason. She looked at the drone and said "Can you scan the area? Try to connect to any local networks you can."

The drone 'nodded', if the drone could nod, and flew out of the wrecked skyranger. Almost immediately the drone flew back into the wreck and began chittering off to Anne. Anne's eyes widened as she got out her Chosen Assault rifle, more commonly known as Disruptor Rifle, and loaded it.

Gabriel looked surprised and asked, "What's wrong Anne?"

"We aren't alone," Anne said, getting outside. The rest of the group shrugged and prepped their weapons. Gabriel brought out his Chosen Shotgun, Arashi, loaded it and checked Katana, the weapon of the Chosen Assassin. Angela brought out her Darklance and her Darkclaw, preparing both of them. Darren brought out his prototype Chosen cannon, which he called Ragnarok, recovered from the fight with the Elders in their stronghold along with his advanced grenade launcher, loading in the plasma grenades he kept handy.

"Alrighty," Gabriel said, "According to Anne over there, we aren't alone. The first thing you see that's hostile, take the bloody shots, aim to kill."

"Got it," Darren said, revving his gun's barrels.

"Copy." Angela said as she took up a vantage point, "Which way are they coming from?"

"Southeast," Anne replied, readying her gun.

"Roger, compensating," Angela said.

A few seconds later, a creature with all black fur, red eyes and white armor bust right through the tree line. When the group saw it, Gabriel said "What in god's good name is that… Thing!"

"Dunno, but it sure as hell is ugly!" Darren replied.

The beast turned to them and growled. It then howled and charged. Angela fired one shot, killing the beast before it even got close to them.

"Target down." She said.

"Nice shot!" Gabriel said.

"Thanks." Angela said, "But we ain't done yet. At least twenty more contacts coming out of the forest."

"Shit…" Darren said, "Well then. Let's fuck 'em up!"

* * *

Ozpin was having a fine night. That is until he looked on the cameras in the Emerald Forest as he usually did. On one of the cameras, he saw what looked like a downed flying vehicle, which looked like a bullhead, with four people and a weird drone in it. Suddenly, the group got into what looked like a battle formation. One of the women, holding the long barreled gun, got up on the downed vessel while the drone controller got out front. A man with a shotgun and a sword on his back leapt out with them, followed closely behind a man wielding what looked like a large minigun.

Suddenly, a single Beowulf came out of the forest near them and began sniffing the air. Almost as soon as it did, the Beowulf charged at the group. The woman, with what looked like a sniper rifle took a single shot, sending a red/black bolt right through the Beowolf's head, killing it instantly.

'Interesting,' Ozpin thought, 'Strange weapons they wield.'

Then the hoard arrived. En masse swarmed what had to be at least forty Beowolves total. The team of four worked with so much cohesion, you would have thought them to have been doing this for their whole life. The two women with rifles laying down fire on the advancing Grimm, dropping them. Any that got to close were shredded by the man with the shotgun and the man with the minigun. No Beowulf got within ten meters of the group, each being torn to pieces before they could get in the radius.

'It's only a matter of time before they get overrun." Ozpin thought. Quickly, he pressed the call button to Glynda Goodwitch, second in command at Beacon Academy.

"Glynda," Ozpin said, "I may have a mission for you."

* * *

 _Team RWBY's Dorm Room…_

Ruby was having a fun night. Right now, at least. This week was their break week and since none of the team was going home, Ruby made it a priority to have as much fun as possible during the short time classes were out. So… Ruby and Co. were sitting around playing Remnant's version of Monopoly, the game that they had been playing for the past three hours. They had asked Team JNPR if they wanted to join, but unfortunately, they made it a point to practice right now.

"Alright, Chance card." Ruby said as she placed her piece on the Chance square, "Let's see… oh! That's nice."

"Ruby?" Weiss asked, "What's the card?"

"Read'em and weep, Weiss!" Ruby said, holding up a Lawsuit chance card, which let her take one of another players properties. Ruby carefully plucked one of Weiss' properties out of her hands before placing it in her own. Yang and Blake chuckled while Weiss looked dumbfounded.

"That's unfair!" Weiss said, angered, "I'm gonna get you back for that!"

"You can try," Ruby said, sticking her tongue out at her partner, "But you will fail."

Just as Weiss was about to retort with an angry comment, they heard a knock at the door. Yang got up and said, "Who is knocking on our door at eleven thirty at night?"

As she opened the door, Yang was met with one Glynda Goodwitch, staring right back at her. Just as Yang was about to ask Glynda what was wrong, Glynda said, "Get dressed."

"Pardon?" Weiss asked, looking up from the board game.

"Get dressed. Ozpin gave me a mission and told me to take a first-year team with me. We are to investigate an anomaly in the Emerald Forest, around two kilometers out due west."

"Ok…" Yang said, "And I'm assuming you chose us for a reason?"

"Yes." Glynda said, "Now get dressed, the Bullhead leaves in ten minutes."

* * *

 **Lemme know what you think of this little project that I'm working at on the side. If it gets published, I'm thinking of calling it 'Strange people from a war-torn world' and its main characters will be my main squad from XCom 2. Well, see you all in the next update. This is Narsauce, sighing out.**


	5. Chapter 5: Invasion

**Sup, boys and girls! Its me, that one guy who just won't go away, it's Narsauce. I'ma back! With another chapter of this... fun little Fanficiton! Now, to** **the reviews!**

 **ShugoYuuki1233: Well then, in that case... The wait is no longer! As it is here!**

 **Finally, Disclaimers. Diablo is owned by Blizzard, RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth, Blah, blah, blah... LETS GET GOING!**

* * *

 _Isle of Patch, Rose-Xiao-Long residence… A day before the Breach…_

The red portal opened right outside the small two-story house in the middle of a vast forest. From it, came the group of eight Nephalem, along with Raven Branwen. Almost as soon as the portal closed, the rest of the Nephalem moves into the forest area around the house to ensure its safety, while Summer grabbed Raven's hand and pulled her to the door.

"Summer, I don't know if I can do this…" Raven said.

"You have to," Summer said, "You said you love them, right? So prove it and knock on the damn door with me."

Raven sighed and nodded. Slowly, Summer counter to three and they knocked on the wooden door. After a few seconds, they heard someone come down the stairs. They heard the person say, "Who the hell is knocking at my door. At. Twelve. Thirty. In. The. Fucking! MORNING!?"

As the person opened the door, they said, "You better have a good fucking reason…to… be…"

As Taiyang stood dumbfounded, both Summer and Raven said "Hi honey."

"What… the fuck. Did I drink to much tonight? Cause I'm seeing one wife who left me and another wife who died a decade ago."

"Just as stupid as I remember." Raven said, rolling her eyes.

"Just shut up and kiss me, you idiot." Summer said, kissing her husband on the lips.

As Summer and Tai kissed, Raven politely looked away, sort of blushing in a sense. When Summer and Tai stopped kissing, Summer gestured to Raven, who sighed and said, "Tai… I'm… I'm… I dunno how to say it in a way would mean anything to you but… I'm sorry. For leaving you. For everything I did to you"

Tai glared at Raven and said, "And you think… that I would Accept. That?"

"You don't have a choice, Tai." Summer said, grabbing her husbands face and turning it to her, "I'm saying, you will accept her apology, or so help me god, I will FUCKING CASTRATE YOU!"

Tai jumped back at Summer's outburst, surprised at how she acted. Normally, when Summer was still with them on team STRQ, she never made demands. This was quite the different approach for her, at least when she was talking to Tai. Tai then asked, "Are you serious?"

"Yes, very much so." Summer said, "Now. Accept. The. Apology."

Tai sighed and muttered something about women being crazy to himself, before saying, "Alrighty then, fine. I accept your apology, Raven, though I'm not happy with you. Now, what do you two want?"

"To come inside and see our house maybe?" Summer said, her tone shifting from threatening to happy on a dime, "I wanna see if you've been doing a good job with keeping it clean."

Tai shrugged and said, "Well, it's been easy, since the girls left for Beacon…"

"What!?" Summer screamed, "Ruby is at best, what, fifteen?! She should still be at Signal!"

"Well, Ozpin accepted her in two years early…" Taiyang began to say, pulling at his shirt collar.

Summer stood, wide eyed and straight as a board in shock. Slowly, she cocked her head to the side and her eyes began to glow a soft silver as her level of anger began to rise.

Then Summer asked, slowly, "He. Did. What. Now?!"

"Exactly what I just said. She stopped a heist by Torchwick, got saved by Glynda and Ozpin accepted her in early." Taiyang said.

"So, do you know what they will do to her?" Summer asked again.

"Summer, Ozpin is a teacher, not some maniacal mad man." Tai replied, "Look, if you're thinking he's going to hurt her, you are wrong. Ozpin isn't like that."

"It's not what Ozpin will do to her." Summer said, "It's what The Prime Evils will do to her. That's what worries me."

"The… Whos?" Tai asked confusedly.

"Demons," replied Summer, "That I have been fighting for the past decade. And I won. It was like going through hell and back, but I won. And now they're back. And they want revenge. And I don't know if I have it in me to beat them again."

"Did… did you just say demons?" Tai said, creeped out.

"Yes Tai, I did just say demons." Summer replied, "Demons that will stop at nothing to destroy everything we have built, and everyone we love."

"So…" Tai said, "What can we do?"

"Fight." Summer said, "And hope we win. I've beaten them before, but this war is different. Bigger stakes are present now."

"But Summer… why are you angry at Ozpin?" Raven asked.

"Because he put Ruby into the spotlight." Summer replied, "It's only a matter of time before her Nephalem powers awaken. Once that happens, she will be hunted. Mecilicly."

"Nephalem? What is a Nephalem?" Taiyang asked.

"Humans. Faunus." Summer replied, "Descendants of Angelic and Demonic hybrids. Every single human and Faunus that is alive today is one of their descendants. Some are much more powerful than others. Some take time to unlock their powers, whereas others, like Ruby and I, don't. Our powers can activate at any time, anywhere. And it's like a beacon, alerting every angel and demon in all god forsaken creation that she is there. It's like she would be dining a dinner bell, for crying out loud."

Summer then turned to Raven, while grabbing Ravens kimono, and said, "Go. Find Yang and Ruby. Keep them safe for the next little while."

"Summer, wouldn't it be better if you go?" Raven asked.

"Not really. The rest of our group must prepare for the worst case scenario, that being the armies of hell invading soon." Summer replied, "Just get us a portal to Vale, somewhere hidden, please."

"Ok then, Fearless Leader" Raven replied, "Lead the way to victory."

* * *

 _On Torchwick's train…_

Originally, Yang thought she could take the petite ice cream girl. She thought having large… assets would give her… some advantage. Apparently, it didn't. As the fight progressed, Yang lost ground, Aura and the will to fight any longer. The creampuff girl was kicking her ass and probably laughing while she was doing it. That is, if the petite girl could laugh, seeing as how she never talked at all. As Yang lay on the floor of the train, bloodied, bruised and more than a few cuss words to throw at her assailant, she looked up to see the crazy smile of the girl with heterochromia eyes, one pink and one brown, she thought she was done, finished. She had gotten to cocky with her abilities and strength and semblance and now she was gonna pay.

Well, that's what was going to happen if the black haired swordswoman had not appeared.

She just appeared out of this red portal thingy, wielding a red katana, blocking the finishing strike of the ice cream girl. The petite chick looked surprised to see her there, as represented by her eyes widening to an insane point of almost being bigger than her head. The woman, on the other hand, didn't seem to care and reared her arm back and punched the girl in the face. The girl looked shocked, seemingly expecting the woman to take her side. As creampuff girl raised her umbrella in defence, the swords woman brought her red katana in an arc in front of her, unleashing a slice of red energy at the younger girl. The girl tried to dodge, but found herself lacking, as she got slammed by the wave of energy, staggering her back. The woman then ran up to the girl, drop kicking her and sending her back against the wall. The woman ran forward, slicing another red portal open behind the girl, before kicking her into it. The portal then disappeared, leaving only Yang and the woman in the train car. The woman sheathed her sword and walked over to Yangs injured body. Yang could almost hear the tears coming out of the woman's eyes as she knelt down and picked her up.

As she picked Yang up, Yang swore she heard her say between sobs of both joy and sadness, "Oh Gods… Yang… I'm so… sorry."

It was at that point that Yang put two and two together. The sword, the clothing, the hair, really everything. Yang looked the woman dead in the eye holes and said, "Mom?"

"That was… fast." Raven Branwen replied, "Yes, it is me. And yes… I know you are angry with…"

"Angry doesn't cut it 'Mom'! Like I could even call you that!" Yang said, making Raven to get a sad face under her mask, "Summer was always a better mom than you!"

"Yang, trust me, I know that you are angry, enraged even, at me leaving," Raven said in a surprisingly calm, loving and motherly tone, "But, this time, I'm here to stay…"

Yang went silent for a good ten seconds, attempting to comprehend what her mother had just said. The same mother that left her when she was just born… was coming back. Yang then retorted, "You… you can't just… Come back like that! You left us! You left all of us!"

"Because I love you…" Raven replied, "And I didn't want to see you or Ruby Summer or Qrow or Taiyang get hurt because of what I was… Yang… I love you more than life itself. You are my daughter."

Yang looked stunned. She didn't know what exactly to think. On one hand, she wanted to punch her mother with the equivalent force of a speeding truck barreling down a freeway with a jet engine attached to it's back but on the other hand, she just wanted a mother… something that she only had for a little while in life and something that she missed terribly. So, being the not only indecisive person that she was but also the impulsive person was, Yang did the unthinkable.

"Thank you… Mom."

Almost as soon as Yang said those three little words, Raven stopped moving completely. Yang could practically feel the joy radiating off of her mother's face, regardless of it being behind a mask. It was at that point that Raven took off her mask, revealing the face that stood behind it. The once stoic viage that Raven Branwen had worn, hiding her true and caring nature, had once again melted away, as it did with Summer when she returned. She kissed her daughter's forehead lightly, before another rift portal opened up and they stepped through.

* * *

Back on the top of the train, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Oobleck and Zwei were busy fighting off the oncoming White fang goons and Grimm. Seeing as how there were so many of the goons, there was little time to do much else. The fighting didn't for a second keep the group from worrying about Yang. They had left her to fight Torchwick's henchwoman, the two coloured mute named… well, none of them actually knew her name, seeing as how she never spoke once. Mostly, it was Ruby worrying about her sister, because she knew how inconsistent Yang could be while fighting. One minute she was calm and semi collected, with some semblance of a strategy, the next she was an enraged monster who wants nothing more than to tear her opponent limb from limb.

"I hope Yang is okay…" Ruby said as she knocked another White Fang goon off the train with her scythe. Ruby had a strict 'No killing people' rule, thus she would never kill a human or faunus with her blade or bullets. Knocking someone off a train at high speeds however… she didn't feel as guilty about. Because the ground killed them, not her.

"She's going to be fine." Weiss said, summoning a glyph to let her jump up and kick a Fang member in the face, "You worry too much."

"No, she doesn't," Blake said, "Yang is cocky. I still don't think we shoulda left her to fight the henchwoman alone."

Then Ruby said, "See, Weiss!? We have to go back and…"

It was at that point that a red portal appeared out of thin air. The three girls looked confusedly at the portal seeing as how it just sort of appeared out of thin air. They got even more surprised when a black haired woman carrying an injured Yang walked out of the portal. Even that was nothing compared to what the woman looked like, seeing as her face was also a carbon copy of Yang's, but with blood red eyes, like Qrow's. She had the same long hair that Yang so prided herself with keeping long and lucious. None of the people recognized her, save for Ruby, who had seen her before in a picture of Team STRQ.

"Raven!?" Ruby cried out in shock.

Raven smiled at the young Rose and said, "Yes, it is me, Raven Branwen, Yang's mother."

"Wait, you're Yang's mom!?" Blake said, "As in, the mom she almost died trying to find when she was EIGHT?!"

"Regrettably… yes." Raven said sadly, "I was that woman. Now, I wish only to redeem myself in the eyes of my daughter."

"Who luckily," Yang said, startling the group, "Accepts her back."

Ruby looked at Yang with a strange stare and asked, "Are you sure that this is the same woman that you said you wanted to tear limb from limb when we were ten?"

"Yes," Yang replied, "But she came back, she apologized. And she is here to stay this time. Right?"

"Yes… I am." Raven replied.

"Really?" Ruby asked.

"Yes. I just said that." Raven replied. She then asked, "Yang, can you walk?"

"Yeah, I always could! You just picked me up!" Yang retorted, smiling a bit. Raven gently set her daughter's feet on the ground. She then grabbed her sword's hilt, turning the chambers in her sword sheath and flicked out her blade, launching a blast of electricity to three Fang grunts coming up to the group.

"You're welcome." Raven smirked, sheathing her sword again.

"Thanks, but we still have to stop this train!" Weiss said.

Rave shock her head and said, "There is no stopping this train. We have to get off. When this thing blows, we can't be on or near it."

Just then, Oobleck and Zwei ran up to them, Oobleck looking slightly surprised to see Raven. As he ran up to the group he said, "Alrighty girls! This train is not stopping an we need to get off it now!"

"Thanks, captain obvious, for being my echo chamber.." Raven replied snarkely. She then sliced another portal in the air with her sword and yelled, "Everyone, jump through, now!"

First went Yang, the Ruby, Weiss, Zwei, Blake, Oobleck and finally Raven leapt through the glowing red portal. They came out on the other side of the walls of Vale just as the wall exploded, sending debris flying everywhere and Grimm flowed inside. The group fled from the scene, running as fast as they can, away from the oncoming Grimm army. As they fled, they ran right into Cassia and Teams STNL and JNPR, who were currently resting and not really doing anything.

"Hey Yang!" Lewis said, "What happened to you?"

"Small ice cream girl and giant Grimm army! No time to explain!" Yang shouted back. Everyone there shrugged, getting up and began to run after the group. They caught up to the group ahead of them.

"What do you mean small ice cream girl?" Pyrrha asked.

"The lady who kicked my daughter's ass." Raven said, "Now, this seems like a good place to hold. Turn and fight."

Cassia smirked and said, "You seem like my kind of person."

Raven raised her eyebrow and asked, "And who are you? You look a bit too old to be a huntress in training."

"I'm Pyrrha's mother, thanks." Cassia said, pulling out her trident and shield. Everyone, save team RWBY, who already had their weapons out, then pulled out their weapons, Silas drawing Ghost, Tyrion pulling out Deadeye, Nihilus grabbing Sabre's hilt, Lewis cocking Fire and Fury and dropping his stance, Jaune pulling Cerca Mors out, Pyrrha arming herself with Milo, Ren prepping Storm Flowers, Nora grabbing Magnhild and hefting it above her.

It was then that the army of Grimm showed up, coming in full force down the street. There were too many to count, with Creeps, Beowolves, Ursa, Goliaths, Deathstalkers, you name it, it was most likely in the army somewhere.

"Well, shit…" Tyrion said, "That's a lot of them."

Nihilus pulled out a Earth, Fire, and Lighting dust crystal, crushing them in his hands, absorbing their power and says, "Then maybe this might actually be a fun fight."

Silas' amulet began glowing blue as his eyes did the same, and he said, "Don't get cocky, guys."

Nora laughed and said, "No promises!"

With that, they charged the Grimm army. Silas quickly met an Ursa in the middle, using Ghost to slice right through the bear Grimm down the middle. Another two Beowolves charged him, and his amulet glowed blue as two giant blue aura hands shot out of the stone and grabbed the Beowolves. The hands crushed the two creatures into the black dust from whence they came. A Deathstalker shot its stinger out at Silas, who raised his blade and blocked it. Summoning some blades made of energy as Weiss summoned a Time Dilation glyph under his feet, Silas commanded them to turn the Deathstalker into fine ribbons, which they promptly did.

Tyrion and Ruby shot six Beowolves in the face, as Tyrion twirled Deadeye around and reloading the six chambers of the gun. Two Ursa ran out to meet them, but Tyrion activates his semblance and unloaded three shots into one, three in the other, and finally he decapitated a Beowolf that he ran at. As time began to speed up again, Tyrion shot another Beowolf through the head and Ruby impaled another. Tyrion shouted, "Like shooting fish in a barrel!"

Nihilus and Blake quickly dashed between the Grimm, cutting and stabbing when necessary. Using his Semblance, Nihilus absorbed a ice dust crystal and unleashed a powerful blast of frost into the oncoming Grimm, freezing them in place. Blake took advantage of the frozen Grimm and ran forward, cutting the heads off of any she could reach. A Ursa charged forward, one that wasn't frozen, and Nihilus shot a ball of fire and lightning at it, cutting a massive hole in the bear.

Lewis and Yang shot forward, Lewis activating his semblance and shaking the earth around them. A massive tower of stone shot up and slammed down on the Grimm coming at them, killing a small amount of them. Yang continued to beat a Beowolf into a pulp, shooting some explosive shots anywho get to close, suddenly activating her semblance and shattering an oncoming Beowolf into pieces.

Team JNPR was having one helluva time killing Grimm. Nora, being the crazy person she was, continued to smash, blow up and blow up as well as smash any idiotic Beowolf, Ursa, or Creep that got remotely to close to her. Ren dashed around, slicing one Beowolf down the middle, shooting another, decapitating an Ursa, all the while not taking a single hit to himself. Surprisingly, Jaune was handling himself quite well against an Alpha Beowolf, blocking a overhead strike with his shield and de-arming then decapitating the Beowolf. Then, as a second Beowolf charged Jaune, he sliced at the beast, cutting it in half at its waist. Pyrrha then threw her spear at an Ursa, cutting right through its middle. Using her semblance, she yanked her spear back towards her, impaling a Beowolf or two while shield bashing a Creep into dust.

Raven and Oobleck, being the accomplished huntsmen that they were, sliced, diced and melted through any Grimm that were stupid enough to get even remotely close to them. As Oobleck shot off a tongue of flames, melting all the Grimm caught in it, Raven jumped in an out of her red portals, slicing Grimm along the way. But by far the most surprising result came from Cassia, who charged right at the largest Grimm, an Elder Goliath the size of a mammoth with the shape of a regular african Elephant. The Goliath swung its tusks at Cassia, who nibley dodged them by sliding under the swing. The Goliath tried to hit Cassai again, this time with its foot slamming down on her. Again, Cassia dodged away from the beast, its massive tree trunk like legs slamming into the ground with enough force to crack it. Cassia, deciding to finish the fight with the monster, leapt up, wreathing herself with lightning. At the apex of her jump, around the Goliath's head, she brought her trident down on the beast, stabbing through its bone armour and electrifying the massive creature. Suddenly, a massive lightning bolt struck the trident, causing the Goliath to roar in pain, only for it to promptly explode in a glorious fashion. The lightning used in the destruction of the massive beast quickly arched its way to the other, smaller Grimm, causing them to explode in similar fashions.

 **(An: Think the Kingsman head explode scene, but with Grimm and lightning.)**

Almost as soon as it happened, the lightning subsided, and Cassia returned to normal, no longer wreathed in electricity. When she looked back, she saw the students looking at her awe. Even Raven and Oobleck looked surprised at her display. But then again, Grimm were far weaker than the demons Cassia fought at home in Sanctuary, so that attack sort of did much more than it usually would have.

"Well?" Cassia said, slightly winded from performing the attack, "Stop gawking at me! We have a city to save!"

Oobleck shook the surprise out of his head and said, "Right! Let's go, students!"

Everyone then screamed like banshees and charged into the rest of the city, ready to take it back from Grimm that had ingested its streets. Though, Cassia couldn't help but feel that the Grimm in the city was the least of their worries.

* * *

It took around an hour to clear the Grimm out of the city and to somewhat fix the holes in the walls back up. Of course, it all happened so quickly, no one really knew what happened other than a large amount of Grimm attacked. Now, with Roman Torchwick captured and in Atlas' custody, everything seemed fine.

That was, until a Bullhead flying near the one carrying Torchwick was attacked by a massive, flaming bat-like creature, at least the size of a Nevermore.

"What the hell!" Weiss screamed as the massive bat-like creature shot a fireball at another bullhead, destroying it, while ripping the one it was on to shreds with its talons.

"Hellflyer…" Cassia muttered, before shouting, "Get back! They'll try and swarm us if we don't regroup!"

The group of students and huntsmen regrouped around behind Cassia, while she taunted the massive flaming hellflyer, which was still flying high out of reach. Cassia threw her trident at the bat, impales its side and downing the beast. This didn't kill it, however, seeing as the Hellflyer staggered back upwards into a standing position and shot a fireball at Cassia, who raised her shield and blocked it. Cassia then charged for the Hellflyer, before throwing her shield at the it, smashing into its head and killing it. She ran over to the dead beast, grabbing her trident out of its carcase and picking up her shield from off the ground.

"What was that?" Ruby asked timidly, as the rest of the group stood still unmoving from the shock.

"No idea…" Tyrion muttered, "Whatever it was, it took out two bullheads, and Cassia over there said there'd be more of 'em."

Cassia then shouted, "That's because there will be more! Now, run as far away from here as fast as you…"

She was, however, abruptly cut off by a massive axe shimmering into existence and swinging at her. Cassia barely had time to block the strike with her shield, and it sent her flying backwards. Standing back up, she shouted, "RUN! NOW!"

Pyrrha cried out in distress, "NO! I WON'T LEAVE YOU!"

"PYRRHA, I AM YOUR MOTHER AND YOU WILL DO AS I SAY! NOW RUN!" Cassia shouted again, wreathing herself in lighting and charging the Phasebeast that wielded the two massive axe-like blades.

Pyrrha tried to charge into the fray to help her mother, but as she got close, a red vortex opened up, swallowing her whole and causing her to land right in front of Raven, who promptly picked her up over her shoulder and began to run.

As the students and hunters fled the invasion point of the Army of Sin, all Cassia could hear were the screams of Pyrrha, shouting "MOM", off into the distance. She steeled herself, knowing the battle to come might very well be her last. As she charged down the oncoming tide of hell-spawn she said quietly to herself, "Pyrrha… please forgive me…"

She thought that this would be the end for her. That was before the sky opened up, and the fury of the Nephalem poured forth from it.

* * *

"Put me down!" Pyrrha yelled as Raven continued to carry her away from the scene of the Sin Armies invasion. Raven refused and continued to sprint full speed ahead with Oobleck, Team RWBY, JNPR and STNL tailing her.

"There's nothing you can do, Pyrrha," Raven replied, "Cassia is holding them off long enough for us to escape."

"What was that thing?" Weiss shouted, still shook from the encounter with the Phasebeast.

Raven shook her head and replied, "I don't know, but we still have to keep…"

 **BRAKOOM!**

The ground rumbled, the sky broke open, and rays of light came piercing down from the sky and meteors came raining down on the beings that were now invading Vale. The students and hunters looked back to see the invading army turning their attention to something else, other people. Primarily, Sonya the Barbarian. A portion of the demons seemed to veer away from Cassia, instead focusing on the new threat of the armoured woman wielding the two swords as large as she was. The demons recognized her as a threat, and sent massive Demonic Tremors after her, expecting the fight to be simple.

Sonya would tend to disagree.

Sonya leapt up, charging into the masses of the hulking beasts, to then smash back down on the closest one, splitting it in half with her blades. The other two got enraged by this, and began glowing red as they slammed the ground causing it to break under their rage. Sonya smirked charging one, while another man, Kharazim, dashed at the second Tremor. Summoning his Mystic allies, every single one of them, he smashed into the Tremor with his fist, staggering it back. Kharazim then disappeared into thin air, only to reappear around beast, striking it seven times, then stopping back where he started. The Tremor went to smash Kharazim, only to fall down, explode and die.

Oobleck's eyes widened as he stammered, "What… in the what…?"

"Having fun yet Raven?" a voice said coming from behind the group. When they turned around, they saw Li-Ming wearing her purple robes, with her gauntleted hand keeping her arcane focus aflot. While she did not necessarily need the focus, Li-Ming liked it, as it held sentimental value to her, being that it was her old master's, one of the kindest people she had ever known.

"No, not really Li-Ming. I didn't expect… well… THAT to happen yet!" Raven replied, gesturing to the Army of Sin.

Li-Ming simply shrugged, and replied, "Azmodan commands the Army of Sin, and he's known for being the most forward in his rebellion against orders from the Prime Evils. So this is probably an attack out of spite for being told to stay still, if anything. Hold on to that thought for just a second, please."

When Li-Ming said that, she launched an Arcane orb at an oncoming group of fallen grunts. The orb exploded, sending the corpses of the Fallen imps high into the sky. Li-Ming chuckled, before saying, "As I was saying, this attack is probably also to test our resolve in the fight. He'll probably pull his forces out in a bit. 'Specially now that we showed up."

Raven sighed a sigh of relief, wiping her forehead clean of it's sweat. She smiled and said, "Well, I guess she'll be glad to know everything's gonna be fine."

"Oh no, everything is not going to be fine, not by a long shot." Xul said, as he walked up to the group, "This is just a distraction. A small fragment of the total force that will eventually attack us."

Silas Tyrion, Nihilus and Lewis went wide eyed from the statement, only to all gesture at the army and say, "How is that just a… splinter group?!"

Xul nodded and said, "Yes, basically it is just that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a city to go and save."

Xul pushes his way past the group, rushing forward to Cassia, Sonya and Kharazim. As he did, skeletons seemed to form in midair, before charging at the army of demons. With them went Nazeebo and his zombie army, the Gargantuan smashing into a Demonic Tremor and causing it to stumble back a bit. The zombie dogs and the skeletons made a run for it, slicing and biting through any demon that got in their way.

Johanna came slamming down into the ground from the sky, using her Falling Sword technique. When she landed, she exploded several smaller demons in holy light, and sending a larger Phasebeast careening into a building, only to also disappear in the holy light. She then threw her shield into a group of demonic troopers, which all ended up being stunned by the flying metal frisbee. Johanna then caught her shield as it flew back to her only to deliver a hammer of justice to the nearest demon to her.

"Show off." Li-Ming muttered, conjuring another arcane orb and throwing it into a pile of demons.

"How do you do that?" Weiss asked, "Is that your semblance?"

Li-Ming shook her head no and replied, "Arcane sorcery. Most people just call it magic, however. Anyone can learn it, takes more time to master it however."

Ruby's eyes began to beam with excitement as she squealed, "Can I learn magic?!"

Li-Ming nodded but said, "Yes, you could. But from what I've seen, you and your friend with the pistol knife thing are more akin to demon hunters. So if anything, Su…"

It was at that point that a massive demon, four times the size of a Goliath broke through the wall. It had four legs, each the size of tree trunks, and two arms with massive claw-like metal gauntlets on. It's face was covered with a metal helmet, it's massive toothed jaw out, roaring. Johanna roared back, charging it with her flail spinning at speeds that should help any normal person achieve liftoff. Swinging the flail, she struck the one of the beast's left leg. It roared again in more pain, much louder than before. It swung its massive gauntleted arms at Johanna, who absorbed the hit with her shield but still got sent flying back into another demon, which was crushed under the weight of her armour.

The Siegebreaker Assault Beast then turned its attention to the group of students, where Li-Ming was standing defensively. The beast roared in fury and charged.

"Get behind me," Li-Ming said, as her body began to glow a dark purple hue. Assuming the form of an Archon was not something taken lightly in the magical community. Firstly, channeling the destructive power of Arcane magic was quite difficult for anyone without sufficient training. Secondly, when channeling Arcane in the form of an Archon, the energy used tends to slowly burn away at its user's physical form. Which is one of the reasons why even Li-Ming refused to stay in Archon mode for longer than a few seconds. She couldn't lose her perfect physical form, now could she?

Li-Ming's entire body became almost immaterial as she assumed the form of the Archon. Her form looked like a galaxy in space, it's purple nebulae floating freely as stars went supernovae. Extending her purple hand, she shot a massive beam of pure destructive energy at the oncoming Demon, melting through its flesh. The beast screamed in pain as it slowly melted away. Satisfied with her work, but not one to shy away from showing off a little bit, Li-Ming summoned a meteor to obliterate the remains of the fallen Demon.

"Well, now that I've finished that, on to the next topic," Li-Ming stated, "Saving another city from its imminent demise. Lovely way to spend your afternoon, isn't it?"

Blake then stammered, "What… what… what was that thing?!"

Li-Ming replied, "A Siegebreaker Assault Beast. Big, scary... annoying as all hell and trust me, I know. They basically love to cause property damage to any and everything. Also, pretty hard to kill."

"Really? Hard to kill?" Weiss asked, "You just blew it apart like it was nothing!"

Li-Ming rolled her eyes and responded, "Normally, they would be hard to kill. But, since I became an Archon, it's relatively easy to pull off killing it within a few seconds."

Yang looked at her confusedly and asked, "Then why don't you…"

"Do it all the time?" Li-Ming finished, "Because it's really dangerous to do full time. It starts burning away at the user's physical form, and we can't have that now, can we? It also slowly starts to degrade their mental condition as well. If you stay channeling that much Arcane power for too long, you run the risk of becoming a literal insane time bomb."

"Oh," the group said.

"That makes sense," Weiss then said.

Li-Ming chuckled and said, "Of course it does. Now, onto killing more…"

" **FRESH MEAT!"**

…

…

"Shit."

Raven looked scared as she shrank away and said, "Is that what I think it is?"

"A Butcher?" Li-Ming asked, "Yes, it is. In all fairness thought, it won't be that much of a problem now that she's here."

"What's a Butcher?" Oobleck asked.

It was then that the Butcher demon made itself known to the group, the massive sixteen foot tall behemoth of mismatched flesh and bone, wielding a massive sickle and meat carver, each easily the size of a human being. It shouted again, " **FRESH MEAT!"**

"That," Li-Ming said, "That is a Butcher."

The beast charged forward, crushing a few cars along the way with its massive feet. The group stood in terror as the beast charged forward at speeds that shouldn't be possible for something of its size. Then, in a wave of arrows, the beast was stuck like a pincushion after a long day of sewing. Looking up to the origins of the arrows, Teams RWBY, JNPR, and STNL, along with Raven, Oobleck and Li-Ming saw a white cloaked hunter holding two ornate crossbows, one for each hand.

"You made it," Li-Ming said, "I thought you would miss the fun, what with you and your husband lounging around."

The white cloaked figure replied, "I wasn't, I was getting coffee, thank you very much. Now, let me deal with this beast."

The figure then proceeded to leap of the building they were standing on, landing on the ground in front of the group of students. Pulling back their crossbows, the person shot bolt of frost at the Butcher Demon, striking the beasts legs. The Butcher roared in pain, again charging forward and slamming it's massive meat cleaver into the ground. The impact caused a wave of energy to rush at the person in white. The figure dodged out of the way, dropping a small device when she landed her vault. The Butcher ran right into the device, stopping almost instantly and falling flat on its face. The demon looked up, to see the white cloaked figure standing above it.

"Go back to hell, Demon," the figure said, aiming both crossbows at the fallen demon. The bows began to glow with silver light. Suddenly, a stream of silver lined arrows shot forth from the bows, turning the demon's head and body into swiss cheese. Finally, the person placed their crossbows back into the holsters. Forming a massive bow of silver light, they pulled it's drawstring back, and an equally massive arrow formed. The person let the drawstring loose, sending the arrow right through the chest, or what remained of it anyway, of the Butcher. Finally, to add insult of injury, the arrow exploded, incinerating the corpse of the demon.

The group behind the mysterious person was shocked, save for Li-Ming, who had seen this display of power before. The stranger turned to face the group and asked, "Is everyone holding up alright?"

The group of students responded by nodding. The stranger then smiled sweetly, saying, "Good. Now try to stay that way."

Just as the person turned their back and began to walk away, Raven rushed up to their side, grabbing their shoulder. Raven then said, "Enough! You brought me here to reconnect to the people I care about, so you should to. Go on, they're just waiting to see you again."

The figure seemed to stop moving altogether at Raven's words. They seemed to almost be crying, if not in the open, then definitely on the inside. Suddenly, they said, "Li-Ming, go and find Tyrael and help the others. Raven is right, it's been to long."

Li-Ming shrugged and replied, "Sure, whatever you say, Summer."

She then teleported away, leaving the group stunned in her wake. Slowly, the rest of them got over the initial feelings of overwhelming… power they felt radiating on them. The only people not getting over the shock were Yang and Ruby, who were both still staring at the person that Raven's hand was still firmly grasped to.

"Uhh, guys?" Tyrion said, "Maybe staring isn't the best idea."

When no response was revived from either of the sisters, Weiss waved her hands in front of their faces and said, "Remnant to the the Rose-Xiao-Long sisters, are you guys there?"

This time, Ruby simply stuttered, "M… M… Mo… Mo… Mom…?"

The figure once again turned around, smiling, before pulling back her hood, revealing a face that shouldn't be possible. It was like a carbon copy of Ruby's own face, but older and with a scar running down her left cheek. The large, silver eyes of the Elder Rose looked deep into their younger counterparts. She smiled and outstretched her arms, beckoning the two girls forward. Both of them charged forward to meet the woman.

"MOM!" They both screamed at the top of their lungs, charging forward to meet their mother. They tackled her in in a hug as Summer kissed the tops of both their heads.

"Oh, how I've missed this…" Summer said, eyes tearing up with joy, "Oh how I've missed this so, so much."

"We've missed you to, mom," The sisters replied, hugging the woman tighter.

Pyrrha walked up to the group, with a stern look on her own face, saying, "Look, as much as I love the reunion between mother and daughters, my mom is still fighting those things! We have to help her!"

Summer smiled again and said, "Of course we will go to help her. What kind of person would I be if I let the fate of my daughters fall on others?"

Summer then turned around, pulling out her twin crossbows and shouted at the group, "Come on, kids! Lets kill some demons! And after this, I'll make cookies!"

The group prepared their weapons, screamed like banshees and charged into the fray that had destroyed a better part of Vale at this point.

 _ **(Line Break)**_

Cassia was not having a good day in the slightest. Firstly, Vale was invaded by an army of Grimm, which ended with her favorite cafe in Vale being destroyed. Secondly, the Army of Sin, something Cassia thought she was never see again, invaded. This, of course, confirmed to her that there was indeed a demonic presence on this world. Besides the Grimm, which were… different from regular demons, there were no demons on Remnant.

" _By the gods, I hope Pyrrha's ok,"_ Cassia thought while she stabbed another Fallen through the skull and bashed a Fallen Hound with her shield, " _At least there are other Nephalem here… maybe we could survive this."_

A Fallen Overseer landed beside her, impaled by a sword she recognized. Its frame, its blade… everything about it… the day Tyrael cast it into the Worldstone… El'druin.

" _He is here…"_ she thought. Suddenly, filled with renewed courage, Cassia raised her trident to the Heavens, and said, "Well then, lets keep going!"

A massive thunderclap was heard, with an equally massive lighting bolt striking the tip of her trident. Slamming it into the ground, Cassia shocked every single Fallen in a ten meter radius of her. The attack left her weakened, as she stumbled back, trying to regain her breath.

" _Jeez, I have to stop doing that… it tires me to much…"_ Cassia thought as she readied herself for the next wave. The blade in the body of the fallen Overseer next to her rose, picked up by a man. Cassia asked, "Why do you possess El'druin? I thought it was bound to Tyrael."

Tyrael chuckled and replied, "Well, it is. Which is why I wield this blade."

"Wait," Cassia said, "You're Tyrael? I thought you were an Archangel, not a mortal!"

Tyrael chuckled and replied, "I was, until I cast myself out from the High Heavens for supposed heresy. But that is a tale for another time. Now we must fight the Army of Sin and keep them from getting a foothold in the city."

"Right, now lets get…"

"Mom!"

Cassia looked over her shoulder and saw Pyrrha, along with the rest of the students and hunters, rushing towards her, with Summer at their head. Cassia shouted, "Pyrrha! I thought I told you to stay out of this!"

"Oh I know," Summer replied, "But if we're gonna survive, they'll need to know how to fight these things and win."

Cassia thought about it for a second, before replying, "You know, that makes a surprising amount of sense. By the way, what's your name?"

"Summer Rose. I'm Yang stepmom and Ruby's mom."

* * *

"What was that?" Cinder asked to both her compatriots, Emerald and Mercury.

Emerald shook her head and replied, "I couldn't tell you even if I tried."

It had been an hour since the Army of Sin had been pushed back out of the city. The destruction they had wrought, however, didn't go away with them. Nearly a quarter of the city was taken down with them, and if not for those weird people showing up, then the entire city would most likely have been leveled.

"Do you think that…" Mercury began.

"That she sent them?" Emerald finished, her boyfriend giving her a look of some annoyance, even though they often finish each other's sentences.

"Possibly," Cinder said, "But she is trying to keep our presence here a secret… why would they send those things?"

"Oh that's simple."

…

…

The three infiltrators of Salem looked around, trying to figure out the location of the perpetrator of the voice. Suddenly, a five foot eleven boy stepped out of the shadows. He had emerald green eyes, similarly coloured hair, a purple trench-coat and a great-sword the size of himself. He had an evil looking smirk seemingly plastered on his face.

"And you are?" Cinder replied.

The boy chuckled and said, "Aww, did my dear sister not inform you of my coming on this day? How sad… how like her. Regardless, I am Belian."

"Belian…" Cinder said, "Where have I heard that… name…"

"Jogging your memory, Cinder Fall?" Belian said, while smirking.

Cinder's eyes widened as she remembered the conversation she, Salem, Diablo, Mephisto and Baal had just under a week ago. She remembered that someone named Belial, or Belian, would come and help her and her team with their plans.

"So… you're Belian," Cinder said, "Salem said you'd be here…"

She then asked, "Would you mind telling me what the hell that was?"

"Ah, the Army of Sin. That thing," Belian said, "Well, the invasion was done simply to empower us Great Evils by giving us what we need. Diablo and his terror, Baal and his taste for destruction, Mephisto and his lust for hate, Andariel and her want for anguish, Duril and his need for pain, mine own desire for deception and Azmodan's… whatever for sin. All of us have now been satiated, for the time being, at least. I mean, come on, the brothels in Vacuo are… quite the sinful places, more lying goes on within the walls of this so called Schnee Dust Company to the point where I think I would have created it, pain and anguish run rampant, darkness looms at every corner thanks to my sister, terror, destruction and hate exist almost everywhere. It's a miracle that you mortals haven't even torn each other apart as of yet!"

Emerald eyes gave off a confused look as she replied, "Thanks… I guess?"

"That was no compliment, fool," Belian said, "Now, where is our quarters? I wish to rest."

As Belian lead the way to the groups dorm, Mercury whispered in Cinder's ear, "I'm getting mixed feelings about this guy."

"I know," Cinder replied, "I'm starting to regret this as well…"

* * *

 **That's the end of that. The next chapter will take much more time to bring out, but I'll try to put it out in a few weeks... dunno though. I'll try to make the chapters longer and such. Who knows. Well, see you guys next time. Message me if you have concerns on anything. Review with anything that you like!**

 **Narsauce is signing out.**


	6. Chapter 6: Weapons of War

**Its me! I'm here! ... Yay.**

 **Alright, enough melodrama Narsauce, you can do this. You can publish this next chapter, you can have people like it, you can... do other things. Gods, what have I done...? Regardless, welcome back to this little story. I'm just gonna do a bit of self promo awesome before we get into responding to the comments and reviews left by you awesome people. First off, just wanna say... this story has twenty seven faves and thirty three follows... that's way bigger than I thought it would ever be. I mean, think about it, this little community is tiny, eight stories at the max. And twenty seven people have stopped by and said "Wow, I really like this." And thirty three people have said, "Wow, cant wait for more!" I think that's awesome, thanks for the support.**

 **Second thing, Disclaimers. I don't own shit, never will own shit because Blizzard and RT have iron grips on their I.P's. (Though if they do need anyone to take them for a bit, wouldn't mind if they lent them to me... OC SELF INSERT INCOMING TO RWBY! ALERT! WE HAVE A GOD LEVEL OC INBOUND TO RWBY!)**

 **Well, that went better than expected. Now, onto review responses!**

 **darkvampirekisses: Thanks for liking the story, hope you enjoy the rest. At least, till... um... someone... (Not sure who... or if it will ever happen...) dies. Because Diablo and lots o' people die in Diablo BECAUSE MATURITY AND SHIT! But yeah, people gonna die. Check the**

 **meeyaaargh3412: Well, interesting comment. Personally, as a fan of Diablo, I would love to see demons wreck havoc on the soil's of Remnant (Not to say that's not going to happen though) but Remnant has a level of tech the demons of Diablo have yet to see, which is one of the reasons why Watts is being kept around. Really though, can you see Azmodan using a scroll or Diablo using a computer? Lets be honest, it would be hilarious to see them do it! Onto the second bit, will they have a role to play? Short answer, yes. Long answer... yes, but with not the biggest impact, save for the main few people of RWBY, JNPR, STNL, Qrow and Raven. Finally, I honestly thought that my combat narration would be a lot worse than it was, so thanks!**

 **Gamerman22: Cinder changing sides? ... Well, I'm sort of considering it, but she wouldn't come out of the turn-over in the best of ways. Though I can say that Emerald will most definitely survive. Why? I like her, she deserves a second chance. Also, Cinder can change sides, but for reasons seen later in the chapter... it might get complicated for her...**

 **Hope you enjoy, speak to ya'll at the end to clear some things up! Oh yeah, at the end, I got's and important announcement that will help decide the fate of the next chapter! Please read to the end!**

* * *

 _Beacon Academy Tower: Two days after the Breach…_

"What. The. Fuck. Happened. Here?"

Qrow was sitting in Ozpin's office, looking at the footage showing the destruction that was caused in Vale yesterday. It surprised Qrow, seeing the Army of Sin invading Vale. Primarily, because Qrow had never seen any of these beings in his life and yet, here they were. What surprised him the most was that Ozpin was not surprised in the slightest at the arrival of these… things.

"Oz. Why the hell don't you look, like, even slightly surprised?" Qrow said as he took a swig of his a whisky.

Ozpin sighed and replied, "Because, these are all things I have seen before Qrow."

Qrow's eyes shot open as he spat out his whiskey… directly in Ozpin's face. As Ozpin got a napkin to wipe the alcohol off of his face, Qrow said, almost yelling, "AND YOU DIDN'T THINK ABOUT TELLING ME?! TELLING ANYONE?!"

"Mainly because I never thought this threat would never arise here, Qrow. I never thought we were in any danger of the rest of them," Ozpin replied.

"Hold up. The rest of them?" Qrow asked, "The fuck you mean 'The rest of them'? Who is them?"

"Evil Incarnate, Qrow Branwen," A voice said, "That is the danger we face."

Qrow turned around, seeing Tyrael, Li-Ming and Summer, thought he didn't realize that Summer was actually Summer. Qrow then said, "And who the hell are you?"

"Tyrael," Tyrael replied, because Tyrael is indeed Tyrael, "The former Archangel of Justice."

Qrow spat out his whisky again and said, "You just said Archangel. As in deity Archangel shit, right?"

Tyrael thought about it for a second and replied, "Yes I suppose you could consider that correct, but with less vulgarity."

"Alright, now who are those two?" Qrow said, gesturing to Summer and Li-Ming.

"Li-Ming, master wizard extraordinaire," Li-Ming said while bowing.

"And you already know me, Qrow." Summer said, smirking.

Qrow's eyes betrayed some confusion, "And how exactly would I know you?"

Summer chuckled, "Well, that time I convinced you and Tai to wear dresses, the time I drenched Raven in strawberry juice after the Vytal festival was over and we had won… Oh! How about the time I gave birth to one of your nieces? That ring a bell, nimrod?"

"Wait…" Qrow said, trying to piece together the puzzle the woman before him presented, "SUMMER?!"

"He's right," Li-Ming commented, "Give the man a cookie!"

"Unfortunately I don't have anymore. Ruby and Yang ate them all," Summer replied.

"You… you… you made HUNDREDS OF THEM!" Li-Ming cried, "I WATCHED YOU!"

Summer shrugged and replied, "What can I say, they haven't had them in a decade. They haven't had the cookies in a decade. They have cookie eating to make up."

"But… but how?!" Qrow shouted, "How the hell are you alive?!"

"Not the story that I'm gonna have to tell now, but I will eventually," Summer said, "As for your earlier question of what happened here… let us explain that…"

The trio sat down and Tyrael said, "The… entity… if that's what we can call it… was known as the Army of Sin, under the command the Lord of Sin, Azmodan."

"And he is?" Qrow asked.

"A giant blob on spider legs," Li-Ming replied, "He can shoot fireballs, beams of… dark energy, I think? Oh, and he's talkative. Really talkative."

Qrow then sarcastically asked, "Sorta like you?"

Li-Ming, not one to take an insult lying down, shot a Shock pulse through the floor, striking Qrow and… well… shocking him. Qrow flew back against one of the walls in the office with a sickening crack as the wall behind him molded to his figure.

"Don't. Fuck. With. A. Wizard," Li-Ming warned, "Ever."

"Noted," Qrow said as he shook off the debris from his recent encounter with the wall, "So, Oz. You never did tell me how you knew what those things were. So, how do you know them?"

Ozpin took another sip of his coffee, before saying, "Qrow, do you remeber the Legend of the Maidens?"

Qrow nodded with a smirk and replied, "Of course I do…"

"I lied."

…

…

"Pardon?!" Qrow yelled, crushing his flask.

"I said I lied, Qrow. The legend didn't tell the whole story," Ozpin replied.

"Whaddya mean, not the whole story?" Qrow replied, "I thought that the story was just Wizard was lonely and angry, maidens come, teach him some stuff, Wizard grants them powers, end of story. How is there more?"

Ozpin sighed, breathed in deeply and said, "Qrow, the Wizard did not grant the maidens their powers. In fact, there were no maidens to begin with. The first Wizard and the first four Maidens weren't even human. They weren't even material beings. They simply were powers, created by an entity, first the Wizard, then the Maidens, to serve as its Guardians from Salem, the Lady of Darkness."

"Ok then…" Qrow said, "And this entity was one of those two brothers, right?"

"If it was one of the two brothers, none of them would have existed. The only reason the Maidens, the Wizard and Salem exist is because the two died." Ozpin said.

Qrow, again, looked dumbstruck. Tyrael, however, started to piece together the puzzle that Ozpin had presented to the four, seeing as how he was the Aspect of wisdom. He replied, "Would the two brothers have fought, one being pure good, the other pure evil?"

"Precisely," Ozpin replied.

"And these entities, brothers, as you call them. Would they be known as Anu and Tathamet, perchance?" Tyrael asked.

"Yes, they were. When they lived, at least," Ozpin replied.

"So, in that case…" Tyrael began, "What exactly was the power that created these Maidens and this so-called Wizard?"

"I believe you would know," Ozpin replied with a smirk, "You did destroy it's brother, after all."

Tyrael then said knowingly, "So, The Wizard and The Maidens were created… to keep the second Eye of Anu safe from a Prime Evil… interesting indeed… Wizard."

Li-Ming, Summer and Qrow shot back from the two, and Li-Ming said, "You're a Wizard?! You look nothing like a Wizard I've ever seen! I bet you don't even know how to wield Arcane magic properly!"

Ozpin smirked and summoned a arcane familiar to his side. The tiny crystalized ball floated just above his head, before flying right over to Li-Ming, who said, "I retract my previous statement. So you can use Arcane magic… how interesting…"

Ozpin chuckled and said, "Yes I can. And while I would love to discuss that, I also wish to speak to Tyrael. Alone, if we may. We have much to discuss."

"More time with my daughters, I guess," Summer said, "More cookies to be made and eaten. Come on, you two, lets go make cookies!"

Li-Ming cheered as she and Summer rushed to the elevator, Qrow in tow. Tyrael sighed and said, "You know, no matter the amount of battles we went through, she always did try to retain that positive, happy go-lucky attitude of hers. I find that amazing, and quite uplifting."

"She always was that way," Ozpin said with a smile, "Now, onto what I wanted to talk to you about. You sense it, don't you?"

Tyrael nodded and said, "Sense it? Of course I do. I doubt after Caldium I would ever forget the stench of Belial. Unfortunately, it seems that he has disguised his precise location."

"True enough, Tyrael," Ozpin replied, "He is trying to hide his presence here but his deception sticks out like a sore thumb. However, it is not him I worry about, inherently. It is more his company."

"Company?" Tyrael asked, "What would the company of Belial be?"

"Well, for that, I need you to know something," Ozpin said, standing up, "There is something you need to see."

Ozpin and Tyrael got into the elevator on the far side of the office. Ozpin pressed the familiar button on the elevators control panel, sending the Elevator to the most secure area in the entirety of Beacon academy, The Vault.

"What, might I enquire, is down here?" Tyrael asked, as the elevator descends into the vault below.

"The Fall Maiden. Recently, a few months ago at its greatest length, she was ambushed by some who wish to steal her powers and they nearly succeeded in doing so. If it wasn't for Qrow, she would have died, and the powers would have fully been stolen."

Tyrae nodded and replied, "How exactly are these Maiden powers transferred between hosts, might I ask?"

"A Maiden's powers are transferred to the most recent person in their memories. So, should the Maiden be thinking of person when they die, that specific person will inherit the Maidens powers. It is, however, much more complicated. See, the only people who can receive a Maiden's power are young women, however, they can keep it so long as they survive long enough. If the other initial recipient is a man or an elderly woman, a random young girl will be selected to inherit the power." Ozpin replied.

"So, the thief was a young woman, I see," Tyrael said, "Interesting…"

"That is the most likely possibility, yes," Ozpin replied, "I mean, it is the only possibility, seeing as a Maiden's power cannot be possessed by a man and cannot be directly inherited by an elderly woman. Ah, we are here."

The pair arrived at the end of the long hall, at which point they saw the tube with Amber Autumn inside. The girl looked no older than her mid twenties and she already had one of her arms deeply scarred and one of her legs burned quite severely. On top of that, her face was scarred beyond recognition, the once beautiful visage of the young woman now reduced to a scratched mess.

"I assume this is your Fall Maiden, correct?" Tyrael asked.

Ozpin nodded solemnly and replied, "Yes, this is Amber. Poor girl, she had so much of her life ahead of her… but it was unfortunately cut short."

" _If only there was a way of fixing this predicament we are in…"_ Tyrael thought. He then realized that he was carrying a very special potion, one made by Deckard Cain. While it would not necessarily bring back the dead, it would definitely help the girl's recovery in some way.

"If I may, Ozpin, I believe I have something that could help this girl," Tyrael said.

Ozpin looked confused and asked, "And that is?"

"This," Tyrael replied, pulling out a spherical flask with red liquid contained within it. This flask is a special potion, one that can heal many ailes. It is known as The Bottomless Potion of Amplification, a potion capable of speeding up the healing process by enhancing the healing received from other sources.

"This is known as The Bottomless Potion of Amplification. Not only does it heal the person who consumes it, the potion will also increase the natural healing of the person themselves. For example, I gave it to a man who had lost an arm. I came back a day later to find the man with a fully functioning arm. Quite something, right? Besides that, the magic used in the flask consistently insures that more will always be produced." Tyrael finished off.

Ozpin's eyes widened as he said, "Do you think it could help cure Amber?"

Tyrael shrugged and replied, "It very well may, but I am also unsure as to how it would affect her."

"In that case," Ozpin said, "We may as well attempt it. Better to leave no stones unturned."

And with that, the pair of ancients got to work on configuring the potion into Amber's supply of liquid. Tonight would be the night that a maiden was possibly reborn. Partially, at least.

* * *

 _Somewhere in the halls of Beacon..._

"So mom, where are we going?" Ruby asked energetically.

"I believe I've already told you, Ruby. We're going to the forge." Summer replied.

It had taken an hour, but finally all of Teams RWBY, JNPR, STNL, along with Summer, Cassia, Li-Ming, Qrow, and Raven, had all headed down to the forge. This was, of course, to upgrade the weapons they were using to make them more efficient in fighting the armies of Hell.

"So, if I may," Silas began, "What exactly do you intend to do at the forge?"

"Upgrade your weapons, of course!" Li-Ming replied, "You kids can't go fighting the armies of Hell with those dinky things."

"HEY! Crescent Rose is not dinky!" Ruby yelled, pulling out the seven foot long scythe.

"To be fair Ruby, you scythe is amazing, not going to lie," Summer said, "But going up against the armies of Hell, you need a bit of… magic, is what we'll call it."

The entire group, save Li-Ming, looked at her in awe and Tyrion said, "Magic? That's how we're gonna beat these guys? MAGIC?"

"Yup," Summer replied.

Tyrion nodded, "Cool."

After walking for a few more minutes, Weiss asked, "So… what types of magic are we getting put in our weapons?"

"Whichever type you want," Li-Ming responded, "Though I will say, no bias at all, but Arcane infusions are the best."

"Hey! That is to bias!" Summer retorted, "Myself, I prefer Flame infusions, which is obviously the best type."

"Obviously you are both wrong," Cassia said, "Lightning is the best, regardless of what you all say. And my opinion will never change on the matter."

"Ok, ok, ok," Raven shouted, "We get it. You all have your favorite ways of destroying the demons of Hell. Now could you give us those same benefits?"

The group then got to the forge. The forge itself was nothing to impressive, just some workbenches, tuning kits and some repair kits for students weapons. It was never designed for the type of magic that would be used today. Then again, in a world with no knowledge of magic, how could a forge prepare itself?

"If we blow anything up, tell Ms. Goodwitch I'm very sorry," Summer said, "Actually, on second thought, I dont care. Now, everyone, weapons on the table."

In mere seconds, every single weapon that the group had was out on a table in proud display, each student standing behind their own. Summer smiled happily as Raven sighed, unclipping her sword and placed it on the table. Qrow also took his great-sword off and placed its massive blade on the table.

"Alrighty," Summer said, "Now that all our weapons are on the table, you all have to decide what you want your weapons to be enchanted with. There are seven specific infusions you can get placed on your weapons. There's Fire, Lightning, Physical, Cold, Poison, Arcane and Holy. You can pick and choose one."

"Why can't we have more than one?" Ruby asked.

Li-Ming chuckled and replied cheeraly, "Because if you do, you'll make your weapon explode."

Ruby squealed and hugged Crescent Rose, "NO! CRESCENT ROSE IS TO PRECIOUS!"

"Heh," Yang said, "Only Ruby…"

"Summer, I believe we should explain what exactly these enchantments do before the children decide what their enchantment will be, don't you think?" Cassia asked.

"That's… yes, good idea Cassia," Summer said, "Now, where to start… Ah, I know. Basically…"

* * *

 _Salem's Castle…_

"WHAT WAS HE THINKING?!" Salem shouted at the top of her lungs, "I MEAN, COME ON, BRINGING OUT THE ARMY OF SIN THIS EARLY? REALLY?!"

As Salem continued to rant and rave about Azmodan's stupidity, all the while slamming her fist into a wall hard enough to make the wall cave in a slight bit, Diablo sighed at his sister's rage. Ture, while most demons do feel uncontrollable rage, Salem took it to a whole different level.

"Salem, please," Diablo uttered, "Be reasonable. You know how Azmodan is, and you know he will do what he wishes."

"Yes, I know about that! But bringing the Army of Sin into the mix?!" Salem cried, "The Grimm were more than enough to bring down the kingdoms, why bring out a trump card like the Army of Sin?"

Diablo grunted and replied, "Obviously the Grimm are not enough! If they were, you would have won this war millennia ago!"

Salem growled as she realized Diablo was indeed correct on some things. The Grimm weren't enough. Not that they weren't close, but they weren't enough if she wanted to win once and for all. Relenting, Salem asked, "What would you have me do, brother dear? Recall the Grimm?"

Diablo chuckled, "No, why would we do that? Your creations are still of use to us. It is just that, with the Army of Sin in play, why not make more use of it?"

"And what would that be, Diablo?" Salem said, "You know the resourcefulness of humans. They will adapt to our strategy is given time."

"Then we don't give them the time necessary. Besides, adapting will not save them," Diablo replied, "Now tell me, Salem. Can a mortal adapt to a strategy when they are dead?"

"No…" Salem replied, slightly confused, "They are dead. That usually means they cannot do anything."

"Correct. Now, next question. The Nephalem, where are they all?"

Salem facepalmed, "Vale. I am beginning to see where you are going with this."

"Exactly," Diablo grinned, "We can send the army to strike one of the other three kingdoms… But which one?"

"Atlas is a no," Salem replied, "While I doubt that they would survive an attack, it would give the Nephalem time to find us. Atlas would hold out with their machines and their hunters, though I doubt it would take much longer than a few weeks to crush them while they are still unprepared for our threat."

"It would most likely be a slightly longer fight than at Bastion's keep, what with their technology and all," Diablo commented, "But it won't take much longer for us to crush them, seeing as our armies are limitless and theirs have no ways to counter our limitless troops. But that would also give the Nephalem time to strike back and reinforce them. So Salem, where do we strike first?"

"Either Vacuo or Minstral… one of the two," she said, "We must strike soon, to ensure the Nephalem never truly gain a foothold in all the four kingdoms…"

Diablo thought it over and said, "Which of the two is weaker?"

"Vacuo, definitely. Its populations is far less, most of them are farmers and are almost unanimously poor. Though I will say, they do have nice walls surrounding their kingdom's main city. Minstral on the other hand, is the home for all mercenaries and scum, a perfect breeding ground for a cult," Salem replied, grinning evilly, "So, do you wish one of them destroyed?"

* * *

 _Vale City Center..._

"Why exactly are we doing this again?" Sonya asked as she carried another massive block off the carving bench to Xul.

"I've already told you Sonya, horadric sigales are important to our victory here," Xul remarked, "With them intact, we can travel here with the flick of a wrist. Once they are up, we could go to Atlas and if Vale is under attack, we can just come right back."

"So, in that case," Sonya said, "Are we going to go and make one of these in every kingdom?"

"Yes, pretty much," Xul replied.

After working for a few minutes in silence, Sonya turned to Xul and asked, "So, what exactly is your relationship with Cassia? You two seem like good friends."

"We are," Xul replied, "Or at least we were. I don't know about now…"

"Why not now?" Sonya asked.

"Well," Xul replied, "Think about it. She has a family now. A husband and a daughter."

"What do you mean?"

Xul sighed, and said, "I haven't seen her in twenty years, so I can almost guarantee she moved on... Heh, still remember the day she, your father and I came to Mount Arreat with Tyrael those years ago… and I still regret leaving your father in the depths of the mountain even after he told us to leave…"

Sonya nodded solemnly and said, "I remember that day… the day we as people lost everything… but don't hit yourself over the head about my father's death. He died doing what he did best, fighting for his people."

"I know," Xul said, "It's not that, though, that bothers me. It's more Cassia. She hated me after that day, when I pulled her away from the fight. She hated me after that, utterly despised me. She called me a coward for leaving him behind, regardless of what would happen if we had stayed. She wanted to stay by his side and fight… but your father would have none of it and told us off. Only a few days after that, we got the news that your father had died and… and that day was the last day I saw Cassia… until now, at least."

"Do not beat yourself up over it, old man," Sonya replied, "You are a priest of Rathma, a necromancer. You are supposed to fight for the balance of life and death. Not only that, you are supposed to be understanding in death. Don't believe that you left my father to die, think it more that you gave hundreds, if not thousands of people a chance to live because one man died. If I'm being honest, it's a pretty good trade, one for a few thousand."

"You are a very optimistic woman, Sonya," Xul said, chuckleing, "Now if only everyone would think the way you and I think. The world would have a lot more martyrs… and a lot more people alive."

After sitting for another few minutes in silence, Sonya chuckled and said, "So, are we finishing the damn sigil or not?"

"I guess you're right, we probably should finish this way-point," Xul stood up and replied, "Well, let's get to it. Wouldn't want to miss any more of Summer's cookies."

* * *

 **Alright, the end. The best (Or worst) time for the story. So, to clear some things up. Infusions/Enchantments are things that I pulled outta god knows where to give the kids a Beacon a fighting chance in the war against the demons. Second thing, Each and every person who revived an infusion is gonna get a legendary weapon attached to them. The weapon isn't going to change, just its gonna get a few new cool magical tricks! And as for which person gets which infusion and what their legendary effects are, that'll be revealed next chapter in the starting A.N.!**

 **Also, you may now realize why Cinder wont come away from her traitorous actions unscathed. Because AMBER MIGHT BE COMING BACK THANKS TO A BALL OF RED STUFF!**

 **Final thing, I have a pole going up for which of the two kingdoms listed before (Vacuo or Mistral) will be TOTALLY ANNIHILATED! Poll will last till... um... Saturday... Yeah, that's good. Saturday it is!**

 **Regardless, that's me for the day. Have a nice one and see you all later! Bye now!**


End file.
